


Quicker than Wildfire

by joouheika



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: M/M, Manga Spoilers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-09-11
Updated: 2014-10-30
Packaged: 2017-12-26 08:09:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 41,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/963599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/joouheika/pseuds/joouheika
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While stuck in the wilderness together, Levi catches Eren’s wanderlust.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Eren is back within Wall Maria but it is not home.

It is far from it. The Recon Corps had been entrusted with trying to retake it once more, but with far less manpower and their failures of before, this mission was also turning out to be a waste.

Or was that the intention of the higher ups all along? To allow them to try until the point of their own destruction.

Given the stress, the tragedy that had befallen time and time again already, even though Eren remained ever determined (he knew not how to be otherwise) his transformation while complete had been without him again. Before they’d entered the shiganshina district he’d gone berserk. Running away from the town of his upbringing, he’d headed far across the fields, ran into the woods, leaping, tearing deep through across the woods into the mountains, falling.

None had been able to keep up with him be it lack of skill, desire or excessive fear. Corporal Levi pursued Eren relentlessly, using up all the gas in his 3d maneuver gear in the process. Killing countless titans he encountered on the way, their numbers decreasing the farther he followed Eren; succumbing to injury, and unable to fight now had still somehow managed like he always did to cut Eren out from his titan’s form’s nape and carry him to safety.

That’s where they are now, ‘safe’ in some dark cave, some den of sorts, too high in jagged, slanted rock to be reached, greenery enshrouding the area, it’s too small a space for titans to enter. But it goes far this cave, and Levi has dragged them into it until he’s come across water of all things. When Eren wakes, face pressed against Levi’s chest, Corporal’s hand against the back of his neck he looks from Corporal’s shut eyes, drawing himself up, looking over the rest of the length of Corporal’s body- to where he feels something sticky against his knee- it’s blood. From the leg Levi had injured on the first expedition where they’d fought against the female titan, it is badly torn up. Levi had attempted to clean it, had been able to wash it but not bandage it, passing out from the pain or exhaustion, or the mere combination of both.

Eren examines it, knows not only is it torn up but it’s broken, how Corporal had carried him and climbed to here is nothing short but a miracle.

He’d heard Corporal’s heart beating but still he checks his pulse, pressing his brow to his to figure temperature and when he does-

There’s always a risk of infection.

He’ll need to boil water to sanitize it. The water in the cave while cool appears cleaner than that out in the woods around them, but still.

Levi as if sensing Eren’s intention to search outside, stirs, and on waking- 

“Ah, so you’re not dead. I was concerned it was a corpse I was dragging about.”

A lie. Levi had confirmed, and had felt Eren’s heartbeat along his hefting arm the entire time he carried him. His own pulse racing, as it felt all his organs were going to come up out of his throat, from searing- the fire and the agony his leg made him feel with any movement at all.

Levi tries to sit up, scowling when pain tries to prevent him.

Eren too.

“Please do not move if you need not sir! We need to set your leg as soon as possible!”

A doctor’s son, how often he forgets that of Eren. How Eren must forget that of himself. He’s learnt a lot (they all did) from military training. But it’s not often soldiers escape death from the titans enough to treat a wound. Usually getting a wound meant the soon to be arrival of death. However slight, however much he’s suppressed, doesn’t change the fact that Eren still has a cultivated knowledge of what constitutes a fatal injury, with a surprising intuition he lacks in other things (unfortunate)- Levi learnt about it a while back, someone else, probably dead now, of a different cause, that’d gotten hurt and Eren had treated them. Levi had asked Eren how he knew. Knew what medicine to use, knew what way be best (he’s such a lost child) and the moment Eren had mentioned his father he’d passed out soon after. The urgency in his expression had made others around him alarmed, thinking he might transform into a titan there, then- even against his own will.

Eren cannot transform unless he truly wishes to.

Now, at some point, later.

He cannot transform either without purpose.

Levi disregards all Eren has said.

“Don’t waste your time. You still have your 3d maneuver gear. Use it. Return to the others immediately, if they know you are still alive _the mission can continue_.”

It’s going to be a bitch convincing the higher ups to let them try to reclaim Wall Maria _again_ after this fuck up _again_ , it’s been that way every time. If they could just continue from here then-

“What are you saying Corporal?! You cannot move on that leg, there’s no way we’re going-”

“Who said I was going with you? It’ll be alright if you approach them with your hands up in your current form. Go.”

Eren’s expression clearly states he doesn’t understand. At all.

“I cannot be without you Corporal Levi! Did you not say this yourself? If the others saw me alone, you not there to control me should need be, what would they think?”

They’d be sacred shitless, considering the last time they’d seen Eren had been in terror. No doubt they’d wonder where Corporal Levi is and what had become of him. They might even accuse Eren of crimes he did not commit. 

A valid point, that Levi is willing to dash for the possibility of retaking Wall Maria. Now.

“It can’t be helped. We both cannot stay here and I cannot move. The verdict is obvious.”

Eren flares up, completely unwilling.

“Corporal Levi! I will not abandon you! I will not go unless you are coming with me!”

Levi pulls Eren towards him, by the back of his neck, voice low but promising retribution should Eren do anything but heed his words. Contemplating punishment even as Eren trembles, by fatigue, intimidation or fury. All those things-

“Listen here you fucking brat. When I order you to do something, _you must do it_ or do you intend to turn traitor?”

Eren does not keep his voice down.

“That is not my intention and you know this. Even so, I will not do it! Please think about it some more, please rest just a little further. If you didn’t have a fever now-”

“You don’t think I’d make the same decision? Regardless of my state of being, when I tell you to do something you are obligated, once it is an order- to follow that order.”

Levi can feel Eren’s breath against his mouth, hot and heavy from the outrage that threatens to devour him (and Levi feels it rising, his gut again)-

Still Eren resists.

“I believe there are extreme circumstances where opposing the order is the better course of action. Did you not say this to me yourself, to choose whichever action I would regret less? There is no other action I can choose right now that I won’t regret except this one. I feel this strongly. _I will not leave you._ Even if you order it sir!”

Eren is slammed onto his back, against the ground. Levi coughs something up against Eren’s throat, a bit of bile, spit or his own rage.

“ _Eren._ I order you to return immediately!”

Levi had not explicitly said it as an order so Eren had been shooting his mouth freely, but having heard it be as so, he feels Eren’s body tense beneath him, wanting to obey. Trained to. So many times willing to, but this-

“I cannot!”

Eren’s eyes worriedly glance from Levi’s face to where his broken leg is, a leg Levi is putting pressure on now, to Levi the pain of his leg isn’t as bad as the searing headache, and most of all Eren’s defiance.

“Tell me then, Eren. If you will not go without me, how will you take me with you? You do not have the strength nor skill to carry me, I’m too fucking heavy for that. Partially useless with this stupid fucking shit for a leg to boot, yeah still not entirely useless considering I can still discipline your scrawny hide you shitty brat- tell me how the fuck we’re both going to return if it’s together?”

Levi sees the sweat at Eren’s brow, his own fluids on Eren’s face from before, he reaches to wipe them off. Stops. Thinking Eren would say what he usually says in situations of uncertainty, before reluctantly, worriedly accepting guidance. Something like- he doesn’t know another route now but another is still better, this another route he’d no idea on he'd rely on someone else (perhaps Armin, Mikasa, his friends) to come up with. Such a simple fellow, ah, truly like a beast. Unable still to heed the commands of his master. Levi shares some fault in this, he has spoiled Eren too much- while some is based on characteristics Eren already possesses.

Right now Eren is utterly convinced he can do this. He’s been convinced before, ignorant of the true situation, of some error that proves him wrong. Like at Trost where he’d try to strike Mikasa, having fallen to his titan’s form natural instincts? Desires? Whatever it be he’d lost control then.

As he’d done not too long ago with Levi-

“I will transform into a titan and carry you sir.”

Levi thinks-

That is a shitty fucking alternate.

With Eren, truth is the both the strongest serum and the deadliest poison. Levi had been trying to shield him from this, had been spoiling him again, had wanted to spare Eren of this information- but because Eren will not yield to him now (Levi doesn’t want Eren to submit, merely do as his occupation requires- and that is follow Levi’s orders) then Levi has no choice but to use it.

He says, neither low nor erratic-

“What fault is it, that’s gotten us in this situation, do you think. Eren. How do you think _my leg got like this._ ”

Levi watches.

Eren’s eyes as they widen. Almost gold in the dark of the cave. Shadows here, is it day or night. It’s cool in here, which is fine for summer that hangs on the edge of autumn now. Levi isn’t sure if the rapid throbbing, pounding he hears is his own body protesting or Eren’s as he sees first the blindness of confusion, denial then-

“No. No way. Corporal Levi are you saying… I was the one to do that to your leg?”

Not a secondary cause. When Levi had finally caught up with Eren to where he’d fallen. Twisting so many ways this and that, while he’d told Eren to return- if he thought harder on it he’d see the difficulty or near impossibility of it considering Eren has no recollection of getting here. Levi in finding this spot has driven them even deeper into the woods than Eren had had them. All Levi had been thinking was to search for a place that made no titan’s reach capable and to not fucking pass out while carrying Eren.

When Levi had sought to cut Eren from the nape, he’d been hoping speed alone would compensate for how he’d gone in from the front. Unable to position otherwise, or get the angle for the cleanest cut in any other manner, it’d been in vain.

Eren’s titan form had caught onto his leg, an almost full bite, before Levi had hacked the jaw off, and swung round from that. Had to re-position for what he’d hoped at the time to be adequate enough for an efficient cut to not kill Eren, despite what had just happened.

He’d succeeded, but one success did not wipe away previous failure.

“Should for some reason while you’re out there and the 3d maneuver gear fails you or your skills fail it. I permit you to transform again only under the circumstances your life be in danger. Now, Eren. How many times do you wanna make me repeat myself, hurry and-”

He feels Eren’s hands clutch against his elbows, the arms along it, he’d not heard a damn word. Horror still etched in every crevice of his expression, his being. He rises up from beneath Levi, it seems if he's using his whole body he can carry Levi, he just can’t travel the needed distance with it.

Levi’s whole body is hot, sweating, yuck, as Eren looks into his gaze a million apologies in his own. Levi had wanted to convince Eren, once making his back-up plan obsolete that the only course of action left to take would be Levi’s but it seems this poison has worked against not Eren but Levi.

Ah, even with the regret, the pain and shame in Eren’s gaze he sees it burning- resolve, however futile and however illogical. Unable to cultivate conviction with a steady hand. Eren relies on this resolve. Reliable like instinct.

Levi sees it before he finally blacks out.

His orders will be unheeded.

\--

After then, the next few weeks are a haze.

Levi's fever is relentless and robs him of consciousness all the time. Levi wakes often, midday, to find Eren not present. If this sickness is from his leg or else wise it’s being a tremendous pain in the ass. Almost like Eren who is surprisingly reliable in the wilderness. Aside military training, his friends and comrades who were more accustomed to the woods had taught him much, and if he wanted to travel out beyond the walls one day- the woods there were surely wilder than these. He'd need these skills at the very least.

The woods they’re in seem uncommonly devoid of human contact. While this is titan territory now the fact that humans before hadn’t traveled much in these woods before (what paths there are so old, or animal made) meant not many titans had wandered in here. When Levi isn’t unconscious Eren explains to him this. So far he's seen two titans, very small, and they'd not noticed him at all.

Levi had been completely delirious those first few weeks. Eren had fashioned, out of some sticks he’d cleaned from the woods (he is always careful to clean everything, if not correctly then at least in appearance to make Levi feel better) and cutting and sorting the belt straps of Levi’s no longer usable 3d maneuver gear- to make a splint. After washing and bandaging the wound. Biting his lip near the whole time while doing so, at how terrible it is, at how long it’ll take to heal (if it even will, properly) and completely disgusted with himself. A thick and rich loathing that seems to make every motion and every organ in his body heavy. 

Corporal Levi saves him from death, protects him from it at the sacrifice of his comrades, and would to even at the sacrifice of himself and this is what he does?

It’s worse to know, though he doesn’t understand Corporal much, the bits he thinks he does aware him that while he feels the blame be his. Levi doesn’t see it that way at all. It’s an action likely to happen and when it happens it will be dealt with accordingly. That is what had happened. There’s still so much they don’t know about Eren’s power, what they do know for a fact is it is unreliable. There’s no surprises here.

That Levi had brought up the fact of the matter that his leg is like this because of Eren was not to make Eren bear this sin but abandon it. 

Eren feels a little insulted. That while he trusts and believes in the Corporal it is not mutual… selfishly, Eren thinks, how much he wants it to be considering all that they've been through.

Levi knows and was afraid this would happen. Eren is determined to at the very least, see to it that his leg heals. 

If their enemy did not seek their entire annihilation, if their comrades- if the Special Operations Squad were still around perhaps Erd might tell them all a joke on how Corporal’s leg is cursed, Petra and Guther would laugh, Auruo would try not to- Levi dreams of them, probably not as much as Eren.

Eren tosses and turns in his sleep if Levi doesn’t hold him down. 

The first couple of days in the cave, all they’d had to sleep on were their mantles, and Eren insisted that Corporal Levi sleep against him, atop him. To avoid the cold hard ground. While Levi was accustomed to sleeping in the most uncomfortable places, the cool, the damp and the dark of the cave was unlike what he’s experienced for a long while now. It’s a bit like the dungeon to Eren, who falls asleep immediately once he’s determined Levi has passed out and doesn’t appear to be in immense pain.

As autumn arrives- from foraging and hunting in the woods (“True to your surname,” Levi jokes but Eren doesn’t entirely get it) Eren starts to accumulate supplies. Levi’s leg is making slow progress, atop of how bad it is, Levi isn’t very young and it’s slowing down the process. 

In the beginning, they had only the berries and nuts Eren had picked in the thicker woods, down from this cave. When Eren becomes more familiar with the woods he brings back fish or rabbit, one time a deer, starting with the organs. Eren dries the meat but can’t save much of it for long without salt. Luckily, eerily he finds some salt after traveling, deep, deep in the woods. Towards the direction where he thinks (after climbing up a tree and seeing where his titan form had smashed into) they came from. Making a path, marking along the trees gradually each day. For whenever Corporal Levi might be better in the future and they can make their way back. To duty.

They speak of it occasionally, particularly evenings after supper as they wash. How the others might be doing, if they’re alive… what must be done if they return this week, next week… hopefully before winter…

Eren prepares for winter anyway.

Where Eren had come across salt it had been in an odd shack (he'd encountered no others like it so far) that fortunately had other supplies. Pots and other cooking utensils, a kettle, old fishing equipment worn, clothes eaten away by bugs or animals, thread and needle, baskets, a tub, knives that are dull and not as good as the blades of the 3d maneuver gear of course. Other spices or preserved food definitely that should not be eaten, along with a table and chair and other sorts of items either too broken to tell what it is or Eren simply doesn’t know what they are. 

Whether this shack had served for someone's survival or enjoyment in the past, Eren is glad he found it. He brings back the pots, the utensils, the tub (made of wood), thread and needle, the kettle- always going back to the shack to see if he missed anything useful. In the time Eren was away in the woods Levi had been after getting better than he’d been, carving plates and bowls for them from the wood Eren had brought him. Forks and spoons too tedious to make with wood, Eren teaches him about this eating utensil Mikasa had taught him about that’s easier to use and easier to make (they're called chopsticks). Corporal looks almost annoyed about it, not because it’s an idea from Mikasa (whom Eren is always confused if the two of them get along, sometimes they do, sometimes Mikasa and Corporal seem to understand each other so perfectly Eren is a little envious but so very confused) but because the whole point of him trying to make them something to eat with had been to avoid eating with sticks…

Eren makes stew in the pot first, from fish and greens, some nuts. He knows Corporal Levi direly wants tea (and some alcohol, a lot of alcohol but there’s no helping that) and while pine needles aren’t at all like black tea, the drink is hot and nutritious. To mend the broken bone Levi needs a lot of that, Eren tries to see that Levi gets that. The pine needle water is surprisingly well accepted. They use cups Levi has carved to drink from. Bowls he’s made to eat from.

Most of Eren’s time in the wood is spent not exploring, or marking that path but acquiring food. Sometimes he isn’t entirely sure if something is edible, even if another animal eats it. What if the animal is wrong, an irregular, or it’s alright for an animal to eat it but not humans? There are a couple of mishaps where Eren tries a plant, a mushroom, a flower he thought might be edible- while it doesn’t kill him, it leaves him unable to return until late. Levi hates that. Scolds him relentlessly should he come in when nightfall has been so long ago.

It’s not thanks to his regenerative powers Eren survives those mishaps.

He hasn’t been able to turn into a titan for some time now.

The first week through had Corporal Levi looking for the worse, little to no progress at all, what progress that had been made not enough to calm Eren. With Corporal Levi unable to resist, Eren figured he’d go ahead and do as he thought he could… carry Corporal in his titan form anyway. But he couldn’t transform. Every bite into his hands, he remembered- he’d hurt Corporal Levi. He’d lost control. He hadn’t been in control to begin with. The mission is a failure because of him, with each passing day, and should he lose control again this time-

Even if he doesn’t directly injure Corporal Levi should he transform, if he merely ran away (where had he been running to… what dream had he been having again…) then Corporal left on his own would surely die.

Eren had had to chew the food for Corporal that first week, had to give him plenty of water in this manner, with his mouth. Levi remembers flashes of it, shaky and foggy, it’d been too hot and his body weak, how gently and patiently Eren had held him and made sure he swallowed everything down-

Remembers Eren washing him with the cool water in the cave, all they could do for now, until Eren had found the shack. Their real savior. A shrine of the only real god. Luck. 

When Eren drags all the supplies he figures they could use or might be able to use loaded in the tub, to the mouth of the cave where Levi has been attempting to carve a larger bowl than the two drastically differing in sizes pair he’d managed. Eren is almost alarmed by Levi’s sudden stillness, as he registers this to not be a fever induced dream before ordering Eren to heat the water, however long it takes does not matter so long as it be done, in the largest pot, all the pots, the kettle.

It’s only big enough for them one at a time unless someone sits on the other’s lap and carefully making sure Levi’s injured leg won’t get wet, Eren assists Levi in taking a hot bath. Glad Corporal can’t see his smile as he washes Levi’s back. Eren swallows any laugh that tries to surface, at the tremendous sigh of relief Corporal exhales on lowering himself into the water. No longer needing to be envious of Eren who could wash in the streams he came across.

Every now and then Levi has a relapse.

The fever will return. Eren will inspect the wound after it has passed, looking it’s on the mend, he doesn’t know from what the fever is from. A different illness?

One night when he returns too late, morning almost upon him as he enters the cave. Searching desperately previously for that flower that should numb the sudden tremendous rise in pain that Corporal had been having when he'd left, the fever full blown. Hoping to return quickly but on finding the flower and testing it had knocked himself out in the process. He returns with dirt on his face, a bundle of that flower in his hand and petals of it in his hair. Not sure if it'd been the flower itself that'd knocked him out or the memory of his father telling him what this flower could be used for- he'd been glad to have found it, but anxious at the state of being he'd left Levi in- after it'd been so long-

It's probably the fever, but the moment he returns to the cave Levi grabs him by the collar of his shirt, not heeding the warning of standing. Every insult that could be imaginably used, some unknown to Eren is said. Voice lowly, rising, as Levi furiously asks what had taken him so long, had it been a big shit, he'd thought he'd fucking died, why didn't he take the fucking 3d maneuver gear, how fucking stupid, how fucking careless-

When Eren reports to him what had taken so long, only then does Levi stop yelling, his grip on Eren's clothes still unrelenting-

"Don't think about him anymore."

Eren is sure he shouldn't try to remove that hand on him if he wishes to live to actually see morning.

"Who sir?"

"Your father. All he does is make a bigger mess of an already fucked situation. _Don't think about him anymore._ "

Eren is frowning.

"That's not possible, I can't help it."

Eren wonders if Levi's fever had gone down, that relapse his imagination but now both of Corporal's hands twist in his clothes. His breath almost laboured, the sweat on his brow obvious. Eren feels it. Feels how the temperature is even hotter than when he'd left (or was that because he'd just come back in from the cold?) as Levi warns him, asks of him, orders him-

"Think of me instead. Do not allow yourself to become defenseless. If you die then both our lives have been a waste. Total shit. I will not accept it, Eren."

Just a little- with this Eren realises Corporal Levi is acknowledging his reliance on him, so in turn he wishes for Eren to rely on him for strength.

That is-

"I understand sir! Will do!"

Eren already does that.

After that answer, Levi had allowed Eren to lay him back down, on their sad bed of mantles, check his leg, and make a paste of the flowers for him to eat that should help the fever, the pain. How much pain Corporal must be in, coming to grip his arms as he does. How much anxiety he'd had to not stop being able to look elsewhere but Eren's face. How much worry and stress he'd caused, that when they go to sleep and Eren wakes, Levi is still holding on to him.

\--

If anyone has been sent to find them they obviously have not been successful.

Sometimes Levi wonders if they’re even alive, cut off for so long now. What if they have died and this is actually hell- the afterlife. While Eren is away Levi thinks about this sort of shit, and might even laugh to himself, laugh because if they have died it’s a lot fucking better than he thought it ever could be.

Flowers, and other plants that Eren has gathered, he dries and ties into bundles, hanging some of them around in the cave, to make it look nicer, or smell such, some with medicinal purpose, others merely because he thought they look pretty. They try to store what food they can, resigned to stay the winter when Eren goes out as he usually does after their breakfast and there’s frost for the first time.

By the first frost, Levi can move more. The splint is off. Despite that, since he can’t move his leg much still, shouldn’t, he works on exercises to maintain at the very least his upper body strength, when he isn’t organizing what supplies Eren brings in or attempting to clean what debris falls into the cave. Eren was much more impressed by the broom he’d made than the bowls, not much more so when Levi unable to use his legs to full power, doesn’t always use the broom for merely cleaning, should Eren annoy him. 

Levi likewise annoys Eren, insisting once he's better they'll take turns going out into the woods.

When Eren returns to make dinner he (sometimes excitedly) reports to Levi what sort of interesting animal or plant he saw, some very not interesting animal (in particular the ones that hang in the trees, like squirrels and chipmunks) they’d gotten him back for so many nuts stolen in early autumn by eating through what he thought had been a safe place to stash his own gathering of nuts come winter, and by knocking down the basket of berries he’d picked, he’d retrieved what he could, might be the last of it now with the frost present.

They’d built a door of sorts to block the entrance.

Wishing there a way to make a fire in the cave without smoking themselves out, it just isn’t possible.

The many animal furs that Eren had accumulated through his kills, make up their bedding. Furs all carefully washed as much as they could be before being patched together to make a mattress of sorts, along with a cover of sorts that sometimes Eren teases Levi on stealing so much of, before pressing his cold feet into his good leg. Eren always sleeps with his back to him, now that they have the bedding Levi insists Eren sleep in his arms. Be it either on account of the nightmares Eren doesn’t remember once he wakes up (groggily, always unwilling) or Levi wanting to return the favour for the weeks Eren had served as his mattress- it’s damn cold in the cave and the furs, along with Eren make it a hell a lot warmer.

Many nights, he’s sure will be useful come winter, Levi thinks his fever is back. Worries over more relapses. Always the nights Eren looks to be sleeping the most peacefully. Levi’s whole body would burn (is that why Eren’s sleeping so soundly then? Because of this heat-) his hand might move from hanging over Eren’s hip to splay against his belly, might feel his ribs. Eren had already been thin but he’s even more so now. When Levi discovers the answer to this by his own reasoning, he makes sure Eren eats more of the food they have during meals, makes him use the biggest bowl though he protests.

Tries to convince himself he’d just been investigating on Eren’s well being, since Eren doesn’t tell him jack shit _about that_ , there’d been no other reason.

He didn’t think he’d develop another reason, didn’t think since it’s so fucking cold in the cave, when winter finally arrives he’s almost grateful for the excuse to press Eren closer, Eren not minding at all. He likes to be warm too. It’s almost too many nights now Levi has thought of other ways they can keep warm. The steady rise and fall of Eren’s chest, his breathing in slumber, assures him Eren can’t feel Levi’s lips against the nape of his neck, his nose in his hair. Fingers counting every bone they come across.

Levi glad Eren is not an early waker, hates so much to wake, because come morning on nights like those Levi has to turn away and their roles reverse, Eren hugging himself against Levi’s back, never registering he does it. Levi pulls away and makes sure Eren is on his way to getting dressed, eaten breakfast, already out foraging again for what little time he could before the weather gets too bad. Probably not even awake until the sun hits his face, insisting. 

Only after then does Levi haul himself deeper into the cave where that cold water is, before taking care of anything. 

Swearing all the while because it's fucking freezing.


	2. Chapter 2

The next time Eren comes upon a shack it is high up from their cave.

He’d had to use the 3d maneuver gear partially to ascend.

He’d made this decision after leaving the cave. Snow fallen, he can see his breath in thick white grey clouds as he dumps their waste pail outside in the woods, has to crack ice in a stream in order to wash it and his hands. Before returning, setting it aside the mouth of the cave where Levi will retrieve it. Pulling on his gloves (the bigger of the two pairs Levi had made, with more than a little swearing- it’d been funny to hear since it’d been profanity not directed at him for once- they’re not exactly a snug fit or entirely hand shaped, Eren thinks mittens would have been easier).

Eren looking into the bright blue grey sky then, he decided that he was going to see what is up there.

It’s even more freezing up there where the wind can reach without limit.

This shack is similar to the other but he doesn’t think they’re the same. Inside are lanterns not broken, surprising from the wearing wind. This shack must be newer, better built. He finds other supplies, a hefty supply of oil, clothes, and odd records he doesn’t care to read. Rope, lots of rope, chains, cages. There’s not much to hunt up here. For what purpose did this shack and these items reside here? The animals all down in the forest, and the birds that flew overhead of these cliffs fly high. Unreachable to any arrow.

Piling what he will take back with him, he leaves the shack and searches further, heading through scraggily rock that descends, almost paths he hops and treads along, what he finds-

Eren reports back to Corporal Levi who is more than a little irritated that of all times to investigate what lies overhead of them, Eren had chose winter. It’s a particularly chilly day with the wind blowing harder than usual, and some snow had started to fall on his return. Levi had been sitting, bundled up in some blankets, given up on starting a fire outside since between half extinguished flame in the wind and no heat aside his own in the cave, they were much the same.

He makes Eren strip immediately of his boots and outer clothes. Some they’d made together by modifying clothes they found in the shack; adding lining with furs they’d not used on the bedding. Another attempt to not freeze. Levi doesn’t bother to accuse the dark of his horrendous, obvious but still holding stitches. Of the clothes, the ones Eren had done are far a prettier sight.

Generally, when Eren takes too long to return to the cave, the mounting anxiety that follows it- before it, much to his exasperation when he later reflects- are the thoughts of if their roles reverse. If one day it’ll be Eren waiting for him, back in their home. Not a cave. An actual house. How would Eren greet him? See him off? On his return would Eren tangle his fingers through his hair- chide him to warm with a meal or a bath or else wise as he not only took off Levi’s clothes but his own-

Levi would press his sweating palm (ew) to his brow then, unable to register if the heat is from there or his hand, knows it for sure- it is somewhere, this heat, a twisting knife in his gut. Low. A taunting laugh in the alleyway. Also low. If they have to stay here much longer he might lose his mind.

They are also moments accompanied with the feeling- he doesn’t want to leave.

It’s sick. Disgusting. True he has been entrusted to see that Eren does not die, and is protected. But just as Eren- they have a duty and purpose to serve. They are soldiers. Weapons. Their main priority now for their survival is so they may live to once more kill the enemy. That will never change. He wants to. He just wants more along with it.

Eren shows him the lanterns; these not broken like the ones in the other shack, there’d even been a good deal of oil! Such a relief. It’d been unthinkable to use any of the animal fat they’d reserved for fuel to light the semi-shattered lanterns they had procured. They needed all the sustenance of that fat for their own bodies. Levi whose leg is still healing, Eren who is still growing. Giving that up for light in the cave would be a risk to their lives. They know the layout of their cave now even in the dark, and with winter it is mainly dark they reside in. They’d have to keep the entrance sealed from the colder weather. 

Eren sleeps more, sometimes just that when the weather is too terrible, not bothering to wake or move from Levi’s side. Buried beneath blankets. Levi watches his face sometimes peaceful (it’s safe for Levi to touch himself, touch Eren then, a thumb at a bottom lip as he cups Eren’s chin and reaches into his trousers and-) many times not, as Eren twists and turns in some horrific nightmare. Names Levi doesn’t know, names Levi knows well being called. They are always the names of the dead, never the living. The dead are gone and there be no hope for them. Eren could not save them and he carries with him not only the weight of the shadows they’d cast in life but the shadows their memories cast over him now.

If he continues this he’ll be sure to die quickly.

Levi will see to it this won’t happen.

When he can’t wake Eren he holds him down. Smoothes Eren’s hair back, wipes the sweat from his brow, rubs his hands along his arms, his back, holds Eren against him, strongly, tightly, until the struggle is over and Eren’s breathing normals. He either wakes from the pain of Levi’s grip or wakes later to see the bruises.

With the lanterns Eren found now they can have light in extreme circumstances of necessity. They discuss the shack further, if Eren should return to it. Why it is different from the others. Levi surmises because these woods were not occupied by people back when Wall Maria was theirs. These woods, one day they were to be used as farmland when the land that was currently being used in the mountains for farming depleted of its nutrients at last. However that did not mean despite society’s intentions these woods remained entirely untouched. Unmonitored no doubt they were snuck into. People who wished to be alone, people who wanted to take the wildlife for themselves, criminals who used it as a path of getaway- (and Eren thinks of Mikasa, of when they were eight years old and they had met- of the slavers that had come for her and her family-) Levi asks Eren what else he’d found.

Eren explains that there are hot springs higher up, past that shack he'd found.

When Levi is able, they can both go.

Levi is more insistent on his checkups now. Checkups where Eren previously had to feel in the dark. He’s still worried when Levi’s temperature suddenly rises, breath erratic. But Corporal Levi must be getting much better, since he is able to kick him so hard, should Eren touch him in any way displeasing.

When Levi can do more than hobble on that leg and Eren deem it alright, along with the weather willing- they jog outside the cave and even spar. It’s a good fight against the cold. Levi concentrates on rebuilding the muscle in his legs, trying not to always fall back on the leg not previously broken. He wants the power in his legs to be even. They are often overzealous. Levi who hasn’t been able to move for too long and Eren almost starved for company outside the cave. Too many sparring bouts taken too far- Levi is more than a little annoyed when Eren suggests something less strenuous.

Eren isn’t bad at sparring, good even. His hand to hand combat skills, Levi and Erwin had read about them. Seen them on occasion. Pitted against them in his current state Levi can almost even say that Eren is a _challenge_ and a certain feeling of pride almost blossoms (ruined as it seeps, inky, torrential) through him whenever Eren manages to pin him down, especially able after wrapping his legs about his hips, it’s ruined here. Eren’s belly often pressed to his own, his panting breath by his ear. The number of times they’ve ended up writhing in the snow like this- and it’s Levi who finally suggests (while the cold had help) to not do it anymore, lest they get sick since it hasn’t always been convenient after rolling in the snow- to heat a bath.

Eren looks disappointed but obeys.

The weather worsens.

Levi has indeed overworked his leg, so the rest will be good. If he can actually get it.

To conserve energy the checkups had been in the dark, with Eren’s trailing, feeling fingers. Eren always unable to hold back his impressed catch of breath at Levi’s muscles, strength that has been preserved despite injury and the taxing time in the wilderness. Taking Corporal’s pulse, and pressing his ear against Levi’s breast to check the heartbeat (this is no proper way and his head, brow, lips are often pressed here in some part of the night, really there is no reason for this but Eren wants to always, since that time he’d first woke- they’d first woke in the cave- check, confirm). Always concerned when it speeds up, no matter how much Eren thinks on it (and he wishes Armin or Hanji here to help) he cannot figure out what it could be. What other illness this is. If this is another ailment Eren wants to treat it as soon as possible.

Levi’s leg is nearly healed now. By spring it may even be back completely to how it was before.

When Eren suggests they use a lantern this time during the check up Levi replies negative. Eren has been using his hands for his eyes, he can just continue to do so. It has been working so far hasn’t it? They can save fuel this way.

If Levi has to not only hear but see Eren’s wonderment he won’t be able to stand the seclusion winter has driven them into. (Given the chance, Eren won’t be able stand afterwards should Levi has his way).

Nearly a week of this, Eren tires of the dark though he moves much more confidently in it than Levi. With the wind howling, pounding far to the entrance, there’s no need to check how it is outside, be it night or day. He sees no light at all through the cracks and assumes it must be night. Then it is proper to use the lantern.

He does so after the check up, given he’d been refused it during.

They have not exercised much in the cave (trapped by the storm outside) due to the limited space and Eren’s concern of strain, but even so they cannot lay about forever even when the weather permits them to.

“How about this?”

Eren is asking Levi who after putting back on what clothes he’d unbuttoned or took off- is huddled back under the blankets, expression a smidgen of surprise since Eren isn’t already under the blankets with him. Eren is usually the first of them to dive back in. Bundling up tightly.

“What is it?” Levi asks.

Eren is standing. He’s finally lit one of the lanterns, and setting it down along the wall close to where the fuel is kept, he returns to look down at Levi who had been sure they’d just be sitting in bed for the rest of whatever the fuck it is right now. They’d modified a few more clothes, did a few upper body workouts and confirmed their food should hold at least another month if they be careful. A checkup. That Eren would like to do more without a nap is almost surprising. He always wants to sleep, as if to make up for all the sleep he’d lost between those comparatively peaceful days before Wall Maria had been breached and now.

“I was thinking of how we could work out our legs.”

Levi doesn’t bother a verbal reply, he’s looking at Eren. Ready to hear the rest. But Eren falters, as if still thinking on if he should suggest what he wishes they do, having not truly thought it all out. Or realising other factors of his idea that be problematic only upon speaking. When Eren continues his silence further more-

“Spit it out. Eren.”

“Y-yes sir! I was thinking, would dancing not be a sufficient way to exercise our legs?”

Depending on the dance this was rather a practical idea for their situation. Their environment.

Levi stands. Sliding the blankets off.

“I am not opposed to it. But what sort of dances does a brat know?”

Eren almost flushes at this and Levi already wants to turn the lantern off. Eren’s hands balled into fists before him, he stands more submissively as he reports every sort of dance he does know. The list is not long, indeed many he’d learnt as a child. Levi listens, determining the ones he knows as well and settling-

Taking Eren’s hand in his and placing another at his hip, Eren falling back, a hand at Levi’s shoulder. What Levi chose-

“I think it’d be better to educate you on a dance you don’t know then take up one you half remember. However if you end up having been taught this dance already, memory should kick in if you truly know it. If not there is no loss. Any objections?”

“None sir!”

“Let’s get this over with then.”

Levi teaches Eren a dance Erwin had taught him.

Eren has the steps down, moves where he is supposed to go. Lead by Levi. They’ve practiced half of an hour before Eren starts to protest.

“It’s wrong, Corporal Levi.”

Eren is given a look that clearly states how odd Levi thinks this comment is.

“Oh? So you do know this dance already?”

“Ah, no that is not what I meant sir. Just, it is odd to dance without music. Don’t you agree?”

The problem is Levi does agree. Levi gives Eren’s shin a kick, the yelp Levi hears is music to his ears.

“That can’t be helped can it?”

Eren is sore on the leg that’d been kicked, and he hobbles a few more steps before regaining his former strength. His heart throbbing that Levi had chosen to kick the left leg, the leg he’d injured. Directly, indirectly. Levi frowns at Eren’s downcast expression, even more severe than usual.

“Oi answer me you shitty brat.”

“I think it can be helped sir!”

When Levi realises what Eren is saying, they turn- dancing up along the length of cave. Both shivering nearer to the entrance and deciding not to go that far, that close-

“We can have song!”

They could both think of music in their heads, but that would be dancing without the other. Dancing without a partner when your partner is present is just foolishness. Before Levi can linger on how this thought came to be, Eren continues.

“I will sing, sir.”

The song Eren sings-

Levi needs to tell Eren to stop before he remembers.

It’d been them and the rest of Special Operations Squad. They’d been returning from a training activity in the woods, on their way back to HQ. When Erd and Petra had brought up the topic of songs. Most of them from the same area within Wall Rose, they knew all the same songs. Erd sung ballads too sappy, Guther laughed. Guther sung songs you’d sing to children, songs of folklore that Eren liked the best. Auruo and Petra argue over the variations of one song, mostly sung in pubs. How they knew it and why it was so important their version be the “correct” one- in the end Petra had been more believed in. Erd and Guther had never heard Auruo’s version, or likely didn’t want to admit it if they did. They’d been curious on what sort of songs were sung in the other walls- Eren from Wall Maria, Corporal Levi from Wall Sina (supposedly)- they’d not expected Corporal’s input in their silly conversation so they directly focused their attention on Eren.

There were many songs they’d sung that’d been the same as to those in Wall Maria. Recently with the population of Wall Maria having merged with Wall Rose they surely no longer had just a few sets of variations now. Some songs Eren had not known of; Levi’s squad had wanted to hear a song they’ve never heard of before as well.

Eren thought on it a while before finally settling on a lullaby his mother had sung to him.

He doesn’t like to recall it, but he wondered if he may gain insight from them. He’s always wondered why his mother sung to him this song. She didn’t approve of him wishing to join the Recon Corps or his desires to break free of the walls and see the outside. 

Why then he wondered, had she as he was a babe, a child, sung to him this travelers’ song?

Maybe all mothers sung it.

They’d been expecting something upbeat, or even silly. Eren is a fifteen year old boy. But because his superiors had asked him, and his usual way of thinking, it had brought to them their desire in this form.

He’d sung them this song he sings currently. This lullaby that’d not been a lullaby despite how he’d been sung it. It is a sad song. He remembers Armin had liked it a lot. And Mikasa always listened intently (“It’s nice when you sing, Eren.”) It is a song about a pair of travelers that find each other alone in the wilderness. From completely different ends of the earth these travelers are, despite that they decide to travel together, to that somewhere they both have never been to before, a place beyond their dreams- beyond the red dawn, the bright noon and the dark of faded dusk.

It is a song about strangers, about a place far away, it is a lonely song.

Eren had sung it. His face uplifted to the sky, the hood of his mantle had shaded his gaze to their own crimson dusk. They’d listened quietly, carefully as the song progressed. Auruo and Petra even hushed from whatever discussion, argument they’d been in the middle of.

Eren sings, of the travelers’ hardships, of their hopes, their faith, the future they seek.

When he’d been about to reach the stanza of them coming across travelers like themselves he’d stopped. Worried over the silence. He’d asked them if they knew this song and none could say they did. Erd tried to laugh off the lump in his throat, Guther the same, Petra wiped some tears at the edge of her eyes and Auruo had looked away from them all, lip trembling.

Petra had almost attempted to tease Auruo (to calm herself, funnily enough) when they’d heard the loud clomp of hurried hooves as Corporal Levi brought his horse in aside Eren’s.

Eren jumped then, listened carefully when Corporal spoke to him.

“I know this song as well. It is sung within Sina in the same manner. Does the rest of it go as such?”

Erd, Guther, Petra, and Auruo.

Their hearts had skipped a beat as they’d turned, utterly still as they’d set their gazes upon Corporal Levi who’d sung the next few lines Eren would have sung had he not decided to see if anyone else knew this song. Levi had looked at Eren directly in the eyes; falsity of any form would not be accepted.

Levi remembers Eren’s surprised expression, he’d expected more of a reaction but as Levi started to sing the rest of the song, Eren had joined back in. The travelers who met others like them, their joining, their bond. 

Levi had sung still even as he turned to look ahead, and Eren to the sky again, the hood of his mantle fallen back. Every now and then they’d glanced to the other, as each lyric matched word for word. This song spreads along whatever way traveled, it is a song of travelers for travelers. Be you lost, be you found. The place they seek far ahead grows closer with every step, every advance. Like the birds that flew overhead, they too would travel to where they belong.

Levi and Eren ahead of them as they’d hung back. Torn upon the notes of this song, Petra had been unable to make fun of Auruo crying with those tears that’d streamed down her cheeks (despite Auruo crying much harder) the lump in Erd’s throat strangling him and Guther sounded like he had a terrible cold.

They’d looked forward, down this path they traveled as Corporal Levi and Eren sung the song of travelers ahead of them-

When the two reached the line about joining hands it is almost unconsciously they’d reached for each other’s hands and joined them. It is customary. Had they been dancing, they’d have taken both hands in the other’s then too.

The travelers’ song ends without a destination given.

Should the travelers who sung this song reach theirs, that is more than enough.

The end of the travelers’ song is a promise.

The song sung within itself, Levi left Eren to sing the rest of it alone though he still held his hand.

It was then the Special Operations Squad decided.

Decided in the woods where they would meet their end, they would fight against it, they would at all costs, offer their hearts up and protect Eren.

Decided after they’d determined Eren had not transformed on purpose, and they’d bitten in their own hands his resolve, his intention, his loyalty- upon themselves, tasting a glimpse of it, tasting flesh and blood-

Decided after they’d all one day, having seemingly to each other, lost Eren (for none of the them knew where he be and consulting the other with more than a little frantic yelling) had searched HQ up and down until they stumbled out by the garden.

They’d shut up all at once, forced into silence, first by terror and then by lukewarm shock.

Corporal Levi had been in the garden, sitting on a bench they all remember hosing down when they’d first arrived. The book he’d been reading set aside in one hand as the other is placed in Eren’s hair. Stroking it gently as Eren slept with his head against Corporal Levi’s lap. They remember where Eren had been before, the exhausting day he’d had. It was thought as usual one of them was supposed to retrieve him, but it'd been shown here before them that Corporal Levi had beat them all to it.

They’d remembered Corporal not noticing them for many minutes, it’d felt like a long time to them. The amount of time they went without being seen, as they counted every caress, the singular second of tenderness they saw that could have been a smile.

All because of Eren.

Whether Corporal Levi recognises it or wants to pursue it. They did not know. They will never know. What they did know then is Eren is their ally, mankind’s hope- with his ability carries their way to freedom, the truth, the place beyond that those travelers had sought.

They decided then to protect that small possibility of happiness their Corporal has.

That smile they never saw again.

Had it been a smile?

Some of them recall it before that final blow had struck them down.

Recalls that it is a monster that makes both their Corporal and their Commander seem even remotely human.

Levi had asked them when they’d returned, Eren once more chained in the dungeon, if they’d known that song.

He didn’t get anything else from them, the same answers they’d given Eren was all they could even give him. They were curious where he’d learnt that song. If it’s famous in Sina. Levi told them that is so. Levi doesn’t reveal to them it is a song he knows from the underground. It is a song the imprisoned sing, that slaves sing. It is a song to one day make it home, home not be where you were before but elsewhere. That Eren’s mother had sung this to him; that Eren possesses the horrific ability he does, all build a mountain of questions Levi half confides in Erwin over.

He trusts Erwin. He trusts Erwin to do what is best for that which they swore to each other. While he knows at all costs Erwin would protect Eren, it is to a certain end. An end now that Levi isn’t entirely sure of.

Before Levi had met Erwin he’d had no oaths, no promises, no duties to fulfill.

He’d been empty.

Erwin and he both know, for them there is no future. What they seek is not that place in the travelers’ song. It’s funny isn’t it, though they and Eren both seek freedom, what freedom they seek is entirely different to the other’s.

That which those travelers’ seek is what Eren seeks. What his friends and comrades search for.

A future outside these walls.

Whether Eren has thought on that future beyond making it there does not matter. Levi has no doubt, if anyone will make it, Eren will.

When Levi had decided he wanted to become Eren’s strength as well-

Had it been here?

Here in the cave?

As of this moment?

As they dance to the travelers’ song, Eren singing along until finally he reaches that same stanza as before that Levi had joined in-Levi joins him in it again. Then Levi sees it, Eren finally, gradually balking on the memory, of the last time he’d sung this song before. Maybe he’d been happy then, and such happiness with the others he had not allowed himself to recall anymore now they be no more. When his voice falters, and the strength in his legs want to give way, Corporal Levi does not allow it. He supports Eren’s weight and forces him to continue dancing. Eren’s voice resumes its previous volume when Levi’s voice does not cease.

To the end.

They must reach it, the end of this song.

They never do.

Just as the destination of the travelers’ remains unknown and the possibility that they never reach where they desire hangs as a cruel possibility, Levi silences Eren’s sob when Eren cannot hold it in any longer.

Nearing the bed, he twirls them in a final turn, before pushing Eren against their bedding, pressing hard, his mouth harder to Eren’s mouth as he kisses him. Swallows whatever pained cry Eren needed to make. He should have stopped it, he should stop now.

Levi knows but even with this knowledge he finds he cannot.

Knowledge is not always enough motivation to strike down desire.

He cups Eren’s face and continues to kiss him, kisses him breathless, sticks his tongue inside as he feels Eren rolls his hips up into his when Levi grinds down upon him. 

Levi urges Eren to pull his clothes off, the both of them help each other out of them. As if one of them is about to take a bath or Levi is about to have another checkup. They fold their clothes neatly and Levi sets them aside, a few articles are discarded, lost or caught in the bedding and Levi finds he doesn’t care. For now. 

Eren is running his hands down his chest as Levi hovers over him. Eren is once more marveling at Levi’s muscles. There are more noises than a couple amazed gasps. Eren bites his bottom lip, harder with every sudden moan he didn’t know he was capable of making. Eren bites so hard, Levi is worried he’ll draw blood.

Levi kisses him again, taking that swollen bottom lip between his teeth, sucks at it as he runs his hands under Eren’s shoulder blades, the small of his back, his hips- presses their stomachs together, then their cocks together, taking them both in his fist- he pumps them against each other within his slick palm. Eren’s hands scramble to clutch at his arms, his elbows, down and back up around his shoulders. 

To Eren it must feel more than good. He’s completely incoherent right now, babbling against Levi’s throat as he arches his hips and ruts himself against Levi, in Levi’s hand. In how many ways does Corporal Levi have to carry him?

Eren finds himself greedily thinking of discovering more, more, more ways until he’s lost count. Like there are stars in the sky, how he wishes he could see the sky now, what it’d be like if Corporal Levi would kiss him under the stars too, touch him like this-

His thoughts scatter, a battered thousand pieces, far less a number than that of the stars as Levi bites down under his chin, his throat. Seeking to press his lips to not only the side of his neck but the back of it. Eren wants, wants, wants want wants wants isn’t entirely sure what he wants as something hot bolts from one end of his body to the other. All over his stomach now and some on Corporal Levi’s is that heat escaped, sticky and white. Eren touches at it, panting, blinking and curious- it is by some luck Eren doesn’t see the expression Levi is making now as Levi realises-

“What? This the first time you’ve seen your own cum, Eren?”

Eren still doesn’t look up at him. Levi almost thinks Eren can’t even hear him, deaf in the aftermath of his own orgasm.

“Is that what this is called?”

Levi is swearing.

That brings Eren to attention immediately. He sharply looks at Corporal Levi’s face. On making eye contact with the each other Levi says-

“Are you fucking kidding me? Are you actually fucking around with me right now?”

Eren thinks about it momentarily before replying.

“That is what we’re doing right now isn’t it? I know _that_ much, sir.”

A brat.

He is actually fucking a brat, in every goddamn sense of the word right now.

Levi is still so hard, as Eren starts to turn flaccid. Eren brings his hands over to touch where Levi has been gripping them together. Levi’s teeth are clenched, as he looks from Eren’s fluttering eyelashes, his semi-parted lips, feels not only but also sees in the dim light- the tips of Eren’s fingers as he passes his touch over Levi’s knuckles to the end of his spent cock and Levi’s throbbing one. Pressing the pad of his pointer finger to the wetness that’s gathered there. Eren jumps at the noises Levi makes. Between a strangle and a growl, almost, too much. Levi holds Eren’s hand there now, holds it for far too long than should be possible given his previous fervor.

And Corporal Levi is hot again, burning. The same heat Eren recognizes from the checkups, the most recent relapses, all those times Eren had wondered what other sickness Levi could have, this is it. Eren had been worried he’d catch it too, it seems he has. Just as he’d worried at his almost irregular heartbeat as he checked Corporal Levi’s heartbeat.

It’d raced too, his own, the times he’d woke momentarily as Corporal still slept, Levi’s arms always around him assuring, possessive. How many times now had this man saved his life? How many times now could Eren say he is here because of Corporal Levi?

Even if he cannot name this sickness it is akin to something else that resides in him.

The will to be free.

A consuming vendetta against the titans.

They share this don’t they?

They are going to kill them all.

Once the weather gets better, and Corporal Levi’s leg is fully healed. They’ll head down that path Eren carved into the trees. He’d almost gotten to a clearing before; he’d been able to see it in the distance. But there’d been a ton of more titans than he'd gotten used to seeing, that he didn’t want to advance further, not without Corporal Levi. He’d also not wanted to risk wasting what little gas remained in the 3d maneuver gear. Corporal Levi would need it. They’ll determine where the wall is. They’ll climb it. They’ll reunite with their comrades.

Corporal Levi and he have already discussed what courses of action, what turn of events, what might have happened in their absence. They’ve discussed what is to be done, what may have been done for them under Commander Erwin’s insight, with Armin’s calculation, what is expected of them from the higher ups.

What remains is this simple all encompassing truth- they must return.

Along the way and further, they have to kill whatever titans stand in their way.

Whatever enemy.

They will defeat.

Eren’s heartbeat is rapid, wild now, he’s almost afraid he’ll transform with how hot his body feels, but that isn’t possible still is it? Or can he now that Corporal Levi’s leg has healed to the extent it has, this burden, this sin momentarily lifted? 

The guise of humanity has fallen once more from Eren’s gaze, all that is there is the same intensity, the some monstrous ferocity Levi had seen when he’d asked Eren- what it is he wanted to do above all else, back then when they’d first met. Levi still remembers the gritty rust, the grime of the iron bar he’d gripped to get a closer look. If it’d not been there he’d have an even closer one. With the bars’ time worn state, they might as well have been without them. If Eren had transformed they’d do nothing to stop him.

Levi is the only one capable of stopping him.

There is no cage, no chain, no blade possible of it as from he.

In that line of thinking he should possess enough strength to stop himself.

Not everything is rationale in this world, not everything abides by it, is it desire again-

Levi’s groan is loud against Eren’s neck as he bites into it again, cock twitching against Eren’s fingers and his own as he hears Eren cry out. If Eren no longer is able to transform into a titan still, the marks he’s leaving should remain long.

He pulls his hand away and rests his cock along Eren’s inner thigh, dragging his hands up along the lines of Eren’s still too thin body. Grimacing at it, though he already knows it well, a moan caught in his throat at how familiar yet different Eren’s body feels no longer relaxed in slumber but tense under his touch.

When Eren moves to touch Levi’s cock, Levi stops him. Grabs at his wrist and whispers something unbelievably foul against Eren’s mouth before kissing him again, until Eren is choking for breath and their spit drips obscenely between them. 

“Has no one ever fucked you before?”

Levi sees and feels Eren flinch.

He is used to how Corporal Levi speaks, no matter the circumstances his manner does not change.

Still-

“Is that what you want to do sir? Do you want to fuck me?”

Before Levi can make a sarcastic comment Eren is kissing him. Tenderly. During it Levi’s gaze stays on Eren’s tightly shut eyes, his scrunched brow as he does so. Careful but a touch abrasive as he carries on. When Eren moves his fingers to tangle in Levi’s hair- hair Eren has cut, surprisingly well with the unorthodox equipment they use (the same equipment used for shaving, though Eren doesn’t need to shave- not yet, Levi remembers he’d told Eren he would teach him when the time comes-) and Levi likewise for Eren.

Eren starts when Levi seeks to press him harder against the bedding, suddenly pushing his hips, rubbing his hard dick against the soft skin of Eren’s thigh, the underside of his belly.

Levi’s voice rough and harsh, as if it’s caught on barbed wire. Eren’s kisses too sweet.

“That’s right. Eren. That’s exactly what I want. Do you want me to fuck you?”

Eren is glaring at him now, he’s hard between them again. Levi can feel it. A disdain there that makes Levi even harder.

“Corporal Levi, don’t you always get angry at me when I ask _stupid questions_.”

Eren cries out when Levi pulls back, flipping him over onto his knees, his back is cold momentarily as Levi gets up and rummages round by where the lantern is, when he returns Eren feels moist fingers part the cheeks of his ass. Levi's dick also slicked up to slide easier into his asshole. Eren pushes back against Levi in alarm. Levi’s hissing intake of breath is loud against his neck as he presses his hands to Eren’s hips, wanting to enter deeper, deeper now but moving slowly, inch by inch. His voice lower than intended.

“Is this your first time?”

Eren’s hands are bunched into the bedding, it clenched violently tight between his fingers, his hair mussed further as he moves to try to look back at Levi. His cheek also pressed to the bedding, then his brow with the craned turn of his neck- his bottom lip still swollen not only from Levi’s kisses but from him biting onto it again in attempt to deafen down his panting.

His reply is hesitant, as if he’s embarrassed. 

“…it is… sir.”

He is embarrassed.

Eren hates to not be prepared. He can’t possibly be a pleasing partner if he doesn’t know what to do. Compared to Corporal Levi who is older and also has more (any) experience he-

“Oi. You’re thinking about some stupid shit again aren’t you Eren? Didn’t you say you want this? Relax. I’m going to give you what you want.”

It isn’t this.

Levi tries to be gentle, he takes into consideration Eren hasn’t ever done this before, probably isn’t entirely sure this is even done or how this is done. He’s a complete mess beneath Levi. Levi who after slowly moving along in and near out, once, twice, a third and fourth time- can’t stand anymore of Eren’s sharp slow breaths that develop into clipped high moans. Levi grows impatient, his thrusts in every manner but gentle, heart pounding loudly, but not loud enough to drown out Eren’s cries. 

Eren arches back when Levi hits something deep within him, not knowing exactly why. Spit dripping out from his gasping, gaping mouth. Levi bites, sucks and licks at the back of his neck, causing him to cry out even louder if that be possible, the whole back of his body is immensely hot and slick with sweat, Levi likewise. It’s a little gross but-

Cute. The almost confused but pained expression Eren is making now, is so cute. When Levi starts to pound harder into him it only increases to be as so. Eren’s eyes snap shut and tears spill out, every moan rising in volume.

“Ah _ah ah_ \- n, no I don’t like this- please stop Corporal! Corporal Levi!”

Abruptly Levi pulls back, presses all of his weight back onto the balls of his feet, and stops thrusting into Eren. He does not pull out.

“What’s wrong? It don’t feel good?”

While Levi’s irritation is all the more reason to reply as quickly as possible, Eren still takes some time in replying, having to swallow back the increasing lump in his throat. It does feel good, scarily so. But he’d also not liked it much.

The reason for that is simple.

“N-no that’s not it. Just- Uhm-”

Eren is straining to look back at him now, the pout on his lips makes Levi realise what he’s trying to say.

“Ah. A kiss. You want me to kiss you is that it Eren?”

Eren’s eyes light up and Levi doesn’t bother to stifle his moan.

“Yes sir!”

Levi pulls out from him, flips Eren around roughly. Eren startled at the sudden change in position and his request complied. Levi’s kiss as rough as his reentrance, he brings his hands beneath Eren’s hips to better position him, coaxing Eren’s legs to wrap tightly around him. Thrusting into him again, kissing Eren- he wonders what is missing and notices Eren hasn’t wrapped his arms around him, hasn’t slid his hands into his hair like as before when they’d been kissing earlier. Instead a hand is clutching the bedding again.

Levi is about to ask if Eren doesn’t like this either (his compliant mouth saying otherwise for once) when he sees that Eren’s other hand that isn’t clutching the bedding has fisted in salute over his heart. Between kisses Levi manages to convince himself to finally draw back to ask-

“Eren. What are you doing?”

Levi slides his hands up aside Eren’s ribs. Grips around above Eren’s elbow, the other the wrist, as he stares intensely down from Eren’s mouth, his throat, to that salute, a sudden bout of jealously ringing rapidly throughout his entire being as he tries to pinpoint what the fuck it is.

Rapid like wildfire, it scorches everything.

Immediately it is extinguished when Eren tells him-

“Offering up my heart to you Corporal Levi.”

Brat.

A child.

Soldier-

“You idiot. Here.”

Levi takes that salute and presses it to his own heart.

“Feel that? Ain’t it the same?”

Eren’s eyes widen. Beating just as wildly as his own is Levi’s heart.

Eren can’t offer Levi his heart when Levi already possesses it, has taken it, _is possessed by it_. When Levi sees Eren’s look of comprehension-

“Ah you got it now, brat?”

Levi could tell Eren didn’t like it but couldn’t bring himself to say otherwise, what Eren wanted was to make love. Unfortunately Levi can’t give that to him, the connotation of that phrase does not exist in how he takes Eren now. Without restraint, hungry, starving, they are starving aren’t they? Freezing? But it’s so hot now. Lost and hurried. He has no intention of letting Eren go, ever be it in his power. 

“Corporal- Corporal Levi, ah- _ah-_ ”

Eren’s hand that’d been in a salute slides into his, their fingers intertwine, pressed aside of them into the bedding as Levi resumes fucking him. Levi clutches at Eren’s arm. Eren is pushing back weakly against his shoulder, as if to get Levi off of him, but from how he twists his hips up to meet every bruising thrust says he wants anything but that. Eren calling for him over and over fills Levi until he can’t bear it any longer, and he fills Eren with his cum, saying Eren’s name as he does so- tasting the two syllables like a man in the desert would water. He drags that grip from Eren’s arm to Eren’s dick, grips it as he would the hilt of any blade, before pumping it harshly, moving to thumb the tip- he feels Eren’s cum, even more than the first- against their stomachs and gushing against his hand. He wipes it off them both with an article of clothing that’d been caught in the bedding. 

They kiss some more before sleeping, much like how they slept the first nights in the cave. Levi sleeps atop of Eren. 

After the lantern has gone dark, the fuel all burnt out within- it might be day out but the wind still howls and they not bother to check, much more interested in the other. Levi finally pulls out from Eren, whose pained gasp nearly makes Levi hard again. Levi lies back against the bedding, pulling the blankets over them. Eren curls up by his side, intertwining their fingers as he presses his brow to Levi’s cheek. Their legs tangled together. Eren has to tug a bit more of the blanket down to get his feet fully covered.

They rest within the lull of their own breathing, Levi drifting back off into sleep and Eren hadn’t fully woken to begin with. 

Levi turns to kiss Eren’s brow. Eren leans up to his lips, and then leans further to have his lips kissed.

Eren lies back down, looks at their linked hands that Levi rests against his breast.

Eren asks him.

“What’s it like? The outside?”

Levi looks up to the ceiling of the dark cave before pressing his lips to Eren’s not as dark hair.

Eren has never truly been outside the walls. They have to take back Wall Maria before they can resume expeditions to the outside. 

“It’s much like how Wall Maria is now. Like these woods, the wild looks near untouched by man. You can see traces of when people used to reside outside the walls here and there. Once we take back Wall Maria you can see for yourself.”

Eren is thoughtful. Levi continues.

“Bunch of big ass trees out there too.”

Eren hits his shoulder.

That isn’t very nice, but Levi lets it go. Eren’s face turning red when Levi bites his ear, it perhaps enough punishment.

The movement Levi feels next is Eren fidgeting until he becomes attentively still.

“Have you ever seen the sea, Corporal?”

“Sea? What’s that? You making some sort of pun?”

Eren replies negative.

“It’s a giant body of water, sir. More massive than any of the lakes or rivers in any of the walls. It stretches far past the land, and is even bigger than it. You can travel on it in a boat though it is very dangerous. When there used to be many races, it had even been across the sea that some of these other races came from. Our ancestors might have crossed it too. The sea is endless, like the sky. There’s all sorts of creatures in it, not only fish. Some people lived on the beach (that’s the sand that surrounds the sea) and made a living fishing much like how people fish in lakes and streams here. It’s salty. The water, uhm-”

“What’s wrong?”

“I was just thinking perhaps I’m talking too much. It isn’t boring to you?”

“No. You can continue.”

Eren goes on to explain further about the sea, how his friend Armin had told him about it and all sorts of things that are or were outside the walls. Eren has always wondered about outside the walls and felt that mankind shouldn’t be holed up within them. That they should be free. Armin had merely set that kindling flame in Eren ablaze with the insight the old books and stories from his grandfather had given him. It’d only been such a short while people must have gotten used to the walls. That wasn’t how it should be. One day when they’ve killed all the titans and torn down the walls, taken back all that land that they should be able to roam and thrive upon, Eren wants to explore the outside as far as he can go. With Armin and Mikasa he wants to see the vast sea, the red earth, all the tall mountains, the lands of ice- and much more that could be. All that lies ahead.

Levi tells him to do so.

Yes, after they’ve killed all the titans.

Also-

“Should you decide to eventually return here, how about this. Eren.”

Eren turns to Levi’s settled gaze, heart skipping a beat.

“If you decide you do like the sea after seeing it with your friends. Let’s build a house there. We can live off the waters as men did in the past. You like fish don’t you? I do too. We can stay there.”

Does Levi say this because that edge of the dream he’d been having has seeped in, confused with what is real. Before Levi had come to know Eren there’d been no future beyond unrelenting purpose- to obtain victory, to kill every last titan. The cost has already been too high, he has no right now to offer up any less than his entire self. To the very end, so long as that is the last he sees-

He’s become greedier. 

The last thing Levi wants to see now is Eren’s face as he does in this moment, perhaps in bed like this, holding him like this- in their house by the sea. Years and years to come.

It’s dreadfully selfish.

He feels Eren’s tears on his neck. Levi kisses, licks them away- they’re hot, salty- like the sea? 

“What. Don’t want to?”

Eren has wrapped his arms around Levi’s shoulders. Levi holds him. A hand over Eren’s back, another rubbing the small of it.

Levi only stops kissing away Eren’s tears when he finally stops crying. Eren kisses Levi. Settles himself atop of him.

“No, I want to!”

Voice quieting.

“Uhm, please I would like to sir.”

“What was that? I couldn’t hear.”

Eren’s expression is more than a little frustrated.

Levi places his hands about Eren’s hips as Eren sits up upon him, moves them over to skim and then grip Eren’s ass, pressing the tip of his cock between the cheeks, to the hole of Eren’s anus. Eren slowly, hesitantly sits back against Levi’s dick. A shuddering breath escapes as he trembles to fit all of Levi back in. He gets only halfway before Levi grows impatient, assists Eren by slamming him down the rest of the way through that hold on his hips. Eren cries out.

Much louder than before. Then moaning against Levi’s mouth as he arches back. Levi draws a hand up into Eren’s hair. Soft.

“I want to live with you sir.”

He leans a little forward to press his brow to Levi’s, content right now to feel Levi inside him- less content as his breath quickens as Levi moves against him, within him. Levi watches him, watches every move for indication.

Eren closes his eyes, opens them again. Again, the gold Levi sought. What Levi had seen in Eren before enough to merit saving his life- Eren’s answer remains the same- his meaning- as they move together-

“After we kill every single titan on this earth! I will definitely- live with you by the sea.”

Levi thrusts up into him, loses count. Eventually, will the number of times he’s entered Eren exceed his kill count? Their panting is heated and rushed, hurried. Despite this Levi’s voice is controlled, dangerous at the ready.

“We will. Without fail.”

Looking into Levi’s eyes Eren thinks they are the colour of what the sea might be, on a cloudy day, after the rain.

Eren will live with Levi.

Levi will live for Eren.

It is a promise, like the end of the travelers’ song.


	3. Chapter 3

Armin knocks.

Light, brief taps. 

The dark door had seemed large and intimidating with its unfamiliarity at first but now he’s long gotten used to it given how many times he’s had to knock upon it. HQ had been moved from the castle that’d been in the heart of Wall Rose, to a mansion that is much closer to the still not retaken Wall Maria. The mansion had probably been owned by an investor for some business that relied on the lands in Wall Maria and having lost them…

“Enter.”

Armin opens the door. Bundles of paperwork and post in hand. A report from Hanji, various files on what few new recruits there are and many letters. He sets them before Erwin upon his desk, where he’s seated. The unused sleeve of his right arm pinned to the jacket. Erwin had been writing with some difficulty, failures of his usual neat script crumpled about his desk. The paperweight he’d been hoping would keep the paper still as he’d been writing a failure. If Levi were here to see the room he’d have a fit.

Armin places a hand over the paper to keep it still. Had Armin been here earlier he’d have done this to begin with. He often now, is the one to assist Commander Erwin in matters such as this. Paperwork. Getting tea. Tidying up the room. Searching for an old record that might shed some light on a recent development or ignored old matter that must be attended to. Sending out letters and the like.

Those sorts of tasks…

Among others.

Armin is glad he’s pulled back his hair. The bundle he’d had had been hefty and might have gotten caught in it, that’s how far the workload had come up to his shoulders, considering his hair is longer than before it's easier to tangle.

Erwin thanks him as he finishes jotting down whatever it is he’d been writing before looking over what Armin has brought, shifting through them. Glancing over Hanji’s report, reading the new recruit files seriously, before sorting through many of the letters Armin opens with a letter opener that’s killingly sharp. Erwin brings out paper and inks his pen. One of the letters requires (demands) swift reply.

They’d bought as much time as they could.

When Eren and Levi had gone missing into the woods, a search party was almost impossible to send, given their own heavy losses of manpower from the failed assault. By the time they’d been able to gather more soldiers, winter had already come upon them. It’d be dangerous even without the weather to pursue the two.

Some had been sent, to survey the area so a proper report as to why they weren’t moving immediately could be sent to the higher ups. Some returned, some did not.

A look out was attempted before the titans seemed to mass every where even a single person be. Realising this Armin had consulted Commander Erwin on the matter. It was in the fields, by the city, in the city, that titans were numerous, but the few who’d scouted near the woods had seen little to no titans. Be this the case they should not storm the forest with soldiers. In the case Levi or Eren were alive they’d gone to the woods. They could, they would definitely survive there if there were a small amount of titans… and considering if they were found it is only punishment that is to be merited then-

It’d be better to leave them be for now.

Armin had concluded this.

If Eren is found now he would be taken away, not only that it may take some time for him to regain his strength to use his ability. Should he be taken as that, _escape would not be possible_ … so instead of risking the possibility of execution after surviving it time and time again, to bet on something else- anything else- would still be all the better.

Erwin had weighed his explanation carefully. Armin was always appreciative when his fellows listened and thought his words over with consideration, for his superior to do so- for it to be Commander Erwin- there was a certain honour in it that caused his heart to clench and his palms to sweat more than usual.

Mikasa had been adamant they send a search party as quickly as possible, threatening to go by herself if need be until Armin had explained to her why it might be better to leave the situation as it is for now. Hearing him out, cooling her head, she agreed. She is as often as logical as she is emotional, though she always tries to hide it. Besides. If it’s with that shortie that Eren is with… he would be protected. If Eren is alive then Corporal Levi is most certainly alive as well. She bases this on previous experience. Begrudgingly.

Looking out the window, where frost covers it and the sight of the darkness of the night, Erwin almost sighs. 

From the letter- if they do not send a search party then the military police would step in. Though he doubts they’ll find anyone, anything- aside from their own end, what will likely be new recruits will be shouldering the burden of investigating the woods.

“Winter has stayed with us far longer than we anticipated.”

Armin looks to where Erwin keeps his gaze.

When it becomes spring they would send a rescue force. That was the plan. With only titans against them and not the weather, a higher percentage would survive. In the case Eren or Levi be alive then finding them then, in the most optimistic scenarios- they could later resume the mission; they could argue for their stabilization of health before the higher ups could insist for either of them. Levi who would have to report to them, Eren who they would surely want in another’s custody. 

Another concern is if the two are dead, and should their bodies be recovered- considering there be little to no titans in the woods (they presume) then in the case of Eren- those higher ups would want his body given up to them- no doubt Hanji would fight them tooth and nail and do whatever she pleased before that. With some spite though she might deny it. Erwin would deny none of it.

It is unlikely he thinks, for both corpses to be found.

Erwin knows, despite their oath. Levi would still want to do the right thing. He’d want it to be clean. Everyone else could go fuck themselves. If Eren were dead Levi would burn his body.

However if they do find Eren’s body, then Levi is dead. 

Armin remembers Erwin had asked Hanji as they discussed this with a few choice others, if there’s any possibility that Eren might eat Levi’s body- which form- under what circumstance-

Mikasa had been vehement then, asking for herself to be excused for speaking so abruptly without permission from her superior however- no data could support that ever happening in any circumstance. When Erwin had pressed forward Hanji had tutted at him for being insensitive toward other people’s feelings. Though Hanji too pressed forward, she’d been curious to why Mikasa would say that. Was it honor? Her own rose-coloured perception? What was it about Eren that might be in relation to his titan shifting ability that Mikasa knows but they don’t?

This discussion went on longer, tails with no ends.

Armin thinks about it too, unlike Mikasa he thinks that is likely.

So many things are likely.

“After all this time, what do you think? Armin. Are those two dead or alive?”

Armin ponders upon it. A frown on his features. Erwin has glanced back at him though he moves not his head.

“…I think… it could be either way. But, I do not think there is as much value in thinking they are dead compared to that they are alive. Since we still have yet to know for ourselves. It’s better to think they are alive sir, and act accordingly.”

People need hope.

It is a grand motivator.

Erwin glances back to the darkness outside the window.

“I agree with you.”

If it were spring they would try to answer that question. Dead or alive. But with winter dragging on…

Armin looks to Commander Erwin in alarm as he says-

“In that case, we shall act then, immediately. If we do not the streets might be unsafe when spring finally arrives.”

Armin’s expression changes from shock to mild surprise. Not only was the Commander taking to heart what he said and basing a decision from it-

A joke.

The Commander had-

“I’m sorry. Was that not at all funny? Excuse me if I was trying emulate a certain someone.”

Armin laughs.

“I do not know the Corporal as you as well sir to know if you’ve been successful or not. I thought it was a joke rather appropriate to the situation at hand.”

“You’re kind to say so.”

Armin thinks over the Commander’s decision. It is exactly what Erwin wishes for him to do, but even so Armin still can’t help but marvel how well Commander Erwin follows his patterns of activity, or perhaps he is just that obvious?

“Do you know why I’ve made this choice?”

It was not from Armin’s prompting alone. Asking for Armin’s input had merely been an excuse to share what Erwin had already been thinking. But Armin thinks if he’d not given the correct response, Erwin would not have favoured him with this insight on his intentions.

Though Armin has many ideas, one stands out concrete, solid. It all depends on circumstance, should a plan need be complicated or simple. In this case.

It’s simple.

They’ve not any time.

Also-

“It’s like in the case of wolves…”

“Wolves?” Erwin looks at him interested, what answer he’d been expecting he still expects it. But how it is presented is what interests him the most.

Armin glances back and forth between Erwin and the paperwork (to have something else to set his eyes upon) and taking a breath to ready himself, finally settles his gaze back to Erwin who is watching him likewise, patiently. Expectantly.

“Together in a pack, relying on their numbers- they are strong, confident. But stranded by oneself against an adversary, injured or hungered- that strength changes shape. It’s no longer the strength of numbers that can be survived on but the strength of the mere drive to live.”

Erwin mulls over this, a kind smile on his face.

“A dog made vicious by hunger is dangerous indeed.”

Armin looks a little distraught that Erwin has used the word “dog” instead of “wolf” and politely objects to it. Erwin prompts his chin on his hand.

“How are Levi and Eren as wolves? If they are together then the viciousness of a singular wild dog cannot appear can it?”

Armin flushes a little, wondering if his explanation had been too abstract. 

“I do think it’ll still appear sir. After all… they are two of a kind.”

Armin jumps a little at how loudly Erwin laughs, suddenly. Brief.

“They are as one beast. I like your reasoning.”

Familiar like his own.

Are there not another pair of beasts here in this room, also as one? Armin sharply intakes breath, slow and almost sounding deceptively painful, but it is elated. Glad.

Should they find both Levi and Eren alive, no doubt the condition they’re in won’t be all that pretty. However to take that, their desperation to survive in the wild alone with their natural delirium to eradicate the titans, they could use it. It’s cruel after all they’ve surely gone through, to drive them to the very edge like this. But the likeliness either one of them or both be handed over to the higher ups would mean 0 survival to them both. So this way- Erwin’s intention that once they be found to resume the mission immediately- should they succeed this time and retake Wall Maria relying on the viciousness of a cornered, wild dog-

Ah.

Armin had used the word dog as well though he’d objected.

But taken from the wild, and doing the bidding of man.

Doesn’t that make you a dog?

To be living and not human or dead and human, living is always the better choice right?

After Erwin finishes and seals some letters and sorts which files need to be returned, and needed to start initiating this new plan- Armin bundles them up. Relieved to see that the pile is less high than that he’d brought in, but sorry for the amount of work that still needs to be done.  
After excusing himself and turning to leave, he feels a tug at the back of his head. His hair tie had caught on something and given way. Hair falling about his shoulders, barely touching- Armin turns back to see-

Morning light, a line of it cutting through the purple dark of early dawn, making the frost on the window seem even more convoluted than it already is. Commander Erwin’s back turned to this light, Armin’s hair tie pinched in his fingers, the same smile as before when Armin had given his deduction.

Erwin tells him.

“I like your hair much better when it’s down.”

Armin nearly knocks over the spare chair, nearly bangs his head against the door on opening it and has to try very hard not to trip over his own feet as he hastily says thanks once before apologizing and excusing himself from the room more than five times, hoping his hair hides his red face.

It doesn’t the back of his ears, the slight tips of them poking out scarlet.

Erwin doesn’t tell him that he likes that much better as well less he want to give his subordinate a heart attack.

\--

It’s from the cold that they assume he’s so red in the face.

By now some of it is from the cold.

Or least that’s what Armin hopes as he enters the mess hall, his duties completed for now- where Mikasa and the others have been waiting for him. Mikasa has already eaten all her food, Jean anxiously has barely touched his (glancing over to Mikasa more than once, having seated himself before her). Dinner had been a long while ago. In an hour or so, breakfast will need to be prepared. They must be quick.

Connie and Sasha are playing a card game that isn’t familiar, probably it is one of their own games- one they made and one only they know the rules of. He walks in just as Connie leans back with a smirk, three of Sasha’s cards in hand and her wailing the cry of likely defeat. Cards are scattered about them, not all from the same deck. What sort of game is this?

It seems even more complicated than the one he’d just been playing.

Mikasa gets up from her seat, deliberate and measured in stride as she walks over to him, carefully.

“Armin. How did it go?”

Armin nods to her.

“In a few days after preparations have been completed, a rescue team will be sent out!”

Mikasa sighs with relief.

“Thank you Armin.”

“Ah! N-no it wasn’t by my doing. Commander Erwin had it in mind all along…”

It’d be arrogant to say he’d had a hand in this when his fingertips had merely brushed the surface.

When Mikasa does not return to her seat, but still stands before him, that relief of before now sudden anxiety….

Her voice controlled but too quiet even for her as she says, almost desolate, a hand at the knot of her red scarf.

“Armin, what if we go out there and we can’t find anything, what if Eren is-”

“Eren is what?”

Jean speaks loudly from where he’s sitting, he’d started eating his food, and almost looks embarrassed in a sudden bout of emotion on seeing Mikasa become downcast- that’d he’d started speaking with his mouth full. Swallowing the food down. Sasha and Connie looking up from their card game to the chair he’d knocked back on standing.

“Mikasa, that guy… Eren- I know everyone calls him the death seeker and all but you know, out of all of us- he’s the least likely to die, I mean come on! Look at how many times he could have already died and he’s still fighting! So- so you know! No matter what sorta hell he’s put through, he’ll survive! He’s definitely still alive that bastard!”

Jean could be fairly eloquent in times of boosting morale, perhaps to make up for his usual grating commentary outside of such situations, but to Mikasa even when he wants to say something… encouraging… this…

Mikasa turns from him, having looked over when he started speaking, so loudly, so robust, like he often did when arguing with Eren. She’s almost glowering at the floorboards as she appears to be contemplating his words.

Her mood appears almost returned to normal as she glances towards him.

“You're correct.”

Eren is likely to die if he’s not by her side.

At this point, despite how it revolts her, if he cannot be by her side- so long as he’s not alone- and that person he’s with is strong. Stronger than she- then that means he should be alive.

Resisting the urge to grit her teeth she turns to Armin once more.

“Will we be on the rescue team?”

Armin nods.

“It’s likely.”

Since they know Eren the best… since it’d be better for him to be found by those he’s familiar with.

It might be more dangerous to those who are otherwise.

But it’s still not only a rescue team being sent out.

Armin doesn’t let them know this.

Mikasa retrieves Armin’s dinner and sets it before him, he thanks her. She tells him to eat carefully since she’d heated it over the fire in the kitchen. She turns to Jean to tell him to eat carefully as well since he’d almost choked earlier.

Sasha comes over to bother Armin to share his warmed bread as Connie picks up all the cards. Piling them in a manner that looks like he’s placing wrong cards together since they’d mixed decks with no consistency, but from the look on his face he knows what he’s doing. Jean starts telling him it’s a bullshit game. Apparently earlier in the night Connie and Sasha had tried to teach Jean how to play but it’d been too complicated.

Mikasa asks for the card decks when Connie is done sorting them.

She’d been observing their game.

It’s far more complicated than the card games she, Eren and Armin had played the few times they played card games but she thinks she’s gotten the gist of it. Armin understands quickly and Jean still hasn’t finished his meal, frustrated he still doesn’t get any of it. Even with Armin’s help.

They end up playing a card game he does know.

Connie elbows Jean, that he need not let Mikasa win, card games are often not left to skill but luck. 

One shouldn’t waste their luck.

They play cards until other people start coming in to the mess hall for breakfast.

\--

Winter will not leave.

Their food is running low and every time they go out hunting, not only is the game still reasonably scarce, there is also the peculiar increase of titans seeping into the area. It causes enough concern that they pack up an emergency kit, in the case they might have to flee to higher above. They can use that shack they figure.

They’re pushed to this. One noon as they’re preparing for a hunt, a large hand crashes through the opening of their cave. Luckily they are deep enough in and the opening too small that the hand merely reaches. Levi has enough time to assemble the well used 3d maneuver gear of Eren’s. Despite their efforts, they have gotten thinner and with this combination and Eren’s added length in height the 3d maneuver gear straps are not difficult to modify for his person. So careful is the government of the length given for them, to ensure the highest mobility and least cost in production.

With that.

Before that hand and the others who have now joined this titan crush the only way out and have the cave crash upon them, Levi cuts that hand, the fingers, striking eyes, shoulder muscles, throats, until both he and Eren can jump through. Levi carries Eren under one arm, smashing their combined weight against the nose of a particularly big and slow titan whose fat finger had been sliced from it. Using its ugly face as a base to jump from, wires cutting and gripping as high as they can in the rock before them. Climbing up as Eren did before. Levi runs against the rock, some of it crushed and falling beneath his pounding, clutching steps, as he unhooks the wire and extends it again, a shorter distance to avoid a fall. By this means they climb to the top, away from the fester of titans below them.

Eren is more out of breath than Levi though they’re both panting through the bite of the cold air up here.

Eren looks over what supplies he’s managed to grab and Levi checks some of the blades and the gas level of the 3d maneuver gear before looking over the area, across the woods. Eren states more than asks, in exclamation-

“I don’t understand! What on earth is going on why-”

Looking about as Levi has, Eren’s gaze frantic then stilled in comprehension-

“You get it now?” Levi says to him as they both see, green, black, red red red, some fresh some fading, a ton of drifting, carried, or newly made smoke signals far off where the wind isn’t as harsh, across the woods, all the way to the distant plains, from there the town is.

There are so many and so far from the other. 

This means one thing.

The entirety of the Recon Corps is here.

What is the intention of doing such a thing?

The situation is then as thus, it is do or die.

Flight will not be tolerated, only fight.

They must be found and the mission must be resumed and successful to account for the high death toll that is surely rising right now, from the weather and the circumstances of urging from the higher ups. 

Do something.

That’s their role.

That Erwin would bet all or nothing is not entirely unlike him, but there’s an element of this plan Levi is not familiar with, there’s a blind faith here Erwin has accepted of others though he does not ask it of them, content to have it come to him and accept it in that time, a blind faith that’s present that can only be forged between those like kin-

This plan is Erwin’s, but the acute finality and gamble of it is reminiscent of Armin.

Eren realises this as it sinks into his mind, how many people are fighting out there on the mere possibility that after all this while, he or Corporal Levi might be alive. For someone to have confidence- to hope to this extent- the “best possibility” has occurred and will continue.

They cannot fail them.

Erwin, Armin, their comrades, the soldiers fighting, the people waiting, those who reside beneath the ground and above it, every citizen behind these walls who are ruled by a king they must at all costs avoid.

When this is all over will they need such a king? Will they need the protection of anything other than themselves? When the titans are gone, will not humans rule themselves, will not the people-

“Eren. I will kill the titans below that are in our way. When the shit has cleared enough I will return for you. Got that? You don’t do anything hasty unless necessary, you already get which circumstances those are right? Or shall I go over them again for you?”

“I understand sir.”

And then because he had a certain allowance now, Eren can’t help but add-

“Please be careful.”

Levi nods to him before descending.

There is no way he’d fuck up on his own and now with Eren’s eyes on him it’s certain. After killing all the titans below that’s gathered, he returns for Eren and they advance forward into the woods as this. Eren kept high up in the trees, when they can no longer avoid the amount of titans around them- Levi would go forth and exterminate them. Eren’s gold and glowering eyes on his form the entire time, watching every move. Making sure no titan reach him. Ready to call out, to jump into the fray himself if need be. No opportunity, no dire moment occurs where this is needed. Levi is controlled, precise, strong. And fast, scarily fast in cutting them down.

They continue as this, finding Eren’s path. Eren muttering his own curses at himself for not placing the marks higher and so making them more visible to them in this situation. He should have cut twice. He’s almost surprised when Levi tells him not to be so hard on himself. He’d not wanted to dull the blades yeah? It’d be a waste, atop of that the situation had changed so much from what it’d been before… it is alright.

Being this high all they need do was look above the trees to see where they are.

Their path has had to change many times due to the amount of titans they’ve had to fight, and had to most of all avoid.

When they come across a human leg, a mantle strewn on the branches, blades embed in the ground where they’d fallen from the grip of a soldier eaten, they’re either close or regretfully as lost as the poor casualty of their responsibility.

They must hurry.

They must resume the mission and accomplish it as soon as possible to avoid any more of these meaningless deaths.

Levi knows while Eren’s other childhood friend has his hand in this- it is still Erwin’s plan. This is his own manner of desperation. To drag Levi out, to show him such wastefulness- is also a relay of the urgency of the matter at hand. The Recon Corps cannot survive without one of them. If one of them cannot return then this final “blaze of glory” is the mark upon their tomb, an epitaph that sings of a final Gloria.

He cannot be angry with Erwin when he himself has been so selfish.

Had it really been the winter that’d made him falter?

Had it really been his healing leg that’d had him hindered?

Levi returns to Eren’s side once more. Eren asks him what his kill count is now, giving the number of today to be added and Levi’s lips twist in a peculiar manner, it’s not a smile.

“Sir, is it that... the number in your report is fake?”

“It’s an estimation. There’s tons more outside the walls than there are within them, once they see humans they come out like bees to honey. I’ve not time to count them.”

Not when he was hacking away, wondering if this second, those five seconds he’d ended up using had been enough to make sure the comrade that’d been crushed underfoot, been taken in hand, whose 3d maneuver gear had failed them of all times- if they’d be saved- if they’d be alive after he’d used up so much time- it’s the seconds it takes to kill he counts.

If Eren asked him that number then he’d be able to tell him.

It’s how they’d made an estimate. Hanji had taken the amount of time it takes for him to kill an average titan and divided it to get the amount he may have killed.

If only all data could be so predictable.

Levi had also been able to tell the number of how many soldiers have died in the Recon Corps since his enlistment.

After today he won’t know.

They can see the edge of the woods. Hoping they’d run into some of their comrades by now. The 3d maneuver gear they have is at its limit. They wait at the edge. Levi sent up a flare but that is no guarantee any one can or will be able to come to their aid. There are so many flares now seeking just that. To differentiate theirs is impossible.

Eren looks at Levi’s tense expression. Turning away, glaring, about to bite at his lip, his hands fisted at his sides when Levi calls his name. As he always does. To have him look over.

The number of titans that have approached and gathered them now are calling for action that cannot be fully given. Or so is expected but Levi has calculated, just how much gas is left in the 3d maneuver gear. He needs there to be a sufficient amount leftover even after taking care of these bastards, to ensure that should Eren shift and be out of control Levi will still be able to reach his nape.

Looking at their movements, their shapes, and the open landscape, he can do it. 

There’s a slight possibility he’s deducted that even after all this he will still have enough fuel for that which duty requires.

This duty, the next.

But it’s uncommonly suicidal even within his occupation.

That’s right.

Levi kisses Eren, holds his face in place by the chin, reaching from the tips of his toes. Eren had not bent over in expectance. That harsh expression of before is eased, the murderous gleam in his eyes ever present. Not bad.

“Spare me some of your luck, Mister I-can–regrow-a-limb-whenever-it’s-cut-off.”

Eren flinches and after Levi has drawn back, turning to jump- Eren scolds him.

“It’s not luck! I don’t know what it is but my ability certainly doesn’t rely on luck.”

Levi gives him a peculiar look, searching.

“…all that lives relies on luck Eren. That you have lived this far under the circumstances you have is nothing short of amazing to me. Don’t you think a great deal of luck is on your behalf?”

Eren flares up, “Then cannot the same be said about you sir? More than me.”

What else Eren is trying to say- it is on account of Levi he has survived to this extent as well. Levi’s luck has been Eren’s own in a sense.

Levi gives it a thought.

“Yes. I suppose you are right. Then it can’t hurt if you lend me more.”

Levi readies his blades, jumps.

\--

Which one of them can say luck is at his side?

Levi had been able to successfully kill all those titans before them without entirely using up the gas in the 3d maneuver gear. But if he uses anymore it’ll run out. He’d figured this. He’d not figured the irregular that’s rapidly approaching from far away, after not having run into any of them. Of course, with the 3d maneuver gear about to be maxed out, both of them exhausted from their escape, the fighting without rest nor end, and not a single soldier to back them up in sight despite having made it to the open fields- of course- a bigger fucking hassle to deal with titan is coming. Along with a few other regulars, because it just isn’t enough.

At this time-

Eren climbs down the tree, without the assistance of the 3d maneuver gear and in his haste- along with there not being many branches on the lower portion of this tree he’d been placed in, he uses his hands to buffer the fall. Bark cuts into them and friction- he’s lost more than a few fingernails once he’s gotten to the bottom, blood seeping and spilling from them both, a finger or two broken on the right as he runs to where Levi is and stands before the Corporal where he be crouching, a knee in the snow- as if to shield him.

Eren looks back to him.

Corporal Levi has not only nearly run out of fuel and is exhausted himself, there aren’t many usable blades left. Atop of that his left hand is bleeding. He’d had to use a lot of momentum from previous movements in order to not waste gas, relying on his weight, and still adjusting to its changes, along with the fact that this gear is not his own, there’d been some uncomfortable sacrifices, such as the trigger pinching part of this flesh on that last spin of a final blow. It is the cause of this blood. A slight injury in comparison to Eren’s self afflicted. All to reach Levi who’s near stranded in the field.

They could return to the high of the trees but then there’d be no more gas left.

No more hope.

Assurance.

But they might die here so what’s the point?

There’s but one thing left to do.

Levi could still fight but then the price of the mentioned option would still come to past.

They cannot allow themselves to be killed.

For all soldiers in this world, the moment your 3d maneuver gear could not support you was the moment you’d meet your end. In most circumstances.

But miracles do happen.

Right now, what they need if none can come to their aid.

If no one else can provide that miracle then.

“Corporal Levi.”

Levi looks up to Eren.

The Wings of Freedom upon his back… Eren wonders, even if just a little- does Levi feel as he had when he’d first seen them, the second time he’d seen the Corporal- all the way back at Trost when they’d about to be eaten, he, Armin, Mikasa…

Levi cannot see Eren’s salute with how he’s turned, but the way his elbow is sticking out there is no mistake on to what he’s doing.

“Sir. If you will allow it. I will now turn into a titan and exterminate the lot of them before us.”

Levi does not take his eyes from Eren’s.

“Are you sure you can do it? Eren.”

Eren relaxes his arms, and crouching as well, turns enough to take the handle that’d cut Levi’s hand, the brief contact enough to make their blood mingle. Levi shudders, revulsion and a certain fascination fixated upon that connection, as Eren moves that emptied handle to latch onto a blade he’s glad Levi had yet to use.

“This is my sharpest blade Corporal. In the case I go berserk again. Please kill me with it.”

Eren encloses that hand over Levi’s as Levi comes to grip the handle once more.

His voice carries not anger and so is warmed by nothing.

“Of course. For what purpose was the 3d maneuver gear being saved, for what reason are you being allowed to transform, for what duty do we live for- I am the only one on this earth who can kill you. Without me you cannot die.”

Eren listens, carefully.

This order that is instilled in him, and meant to consume his entire being into purpose, into motion, _into conviction._

Erwin had asked Levi if he was up to the task. Would he be able to convince everyone, himself included, Eren included- that he as humanity’s strongest carried the capabilities to kill Eren if need be. 

Levi has had to convince himself, night after night, day through day, that he can. If he can control Eren, if he becomes his then it is fully possible. What has been asked of him, and the methods he uses. Do not always correlate, but for duty-

Himself.

“Listen you brat. _These are my orders._ You cannot die until I kill you. Go ahead and transform, we’re gunna kill every single last one of these fuckers. I told you before we would. Now, get going. Return to shiganshina. Repair Wall Maria. Kill them. Eren!”

The rapidly beating heart. How quick it’d been moving before and how much quicker it’d stilled, utterly, at the vicious smile Eren bestows him in a final glance. 

He really is a shitty brat.

“Yes sir!”

Eren yells to him, running forth, hoping to gain enough distance to transform without getting Levi caught in the backlash, but not too close to their enemy that they reach him before his transformation be complete. When he figures good enough, there’s a terrible crunch as he bites into his already crimson, wounded hand. Soon answered with a thundered noise and heat and light, steam.

The earth shakes from his titan form’s tremendous roar, unmistaken, to be heard.

The approaching onslaught upon hearing it freeze- not in anything like fear. That is too human an emotion. They merely stop moving, as docile as they’d be if no humans be present.

Eren is not docile.

He rushes to those closest and wastes no time in hammering a punch into one face, two, a dozen, twice as many kicks, he tears them apart. The irregular of concern before is torn to shreds.

After this lot has been annihilated, steaming from where their blood splattered upon him, Eren slowly and carefully makes his way back to where Levi is still crouching ready.

Preparing for this.

Eren extends a hand out to Levi but Levi vaults over it, the wire whirling particularly loud on this last strain. They clutch at Eren’s titan form’s shoulder, but Levi whirls around to land on the other.

The sharpest blade ready once more.

But here Levi stops.

Eren does not move.

Instead, Levi looking at Eren’s titan form’s face it looks as if… his gaze has merely shifted. He moves not else from that.

It appears that which they’d hoped, that which Erwin had asked of Levi to make sure be fulfilled has been.

“Do you recognise me? Eren.”

Green eyes blink at him though from this angle he can only see one.

Levi places a hand at his hip, leg twitching.

“Oi. Answer me already.”

The gaze shifts to the place Levi had just been, to where he is now. Motions slow certainly, to the blindingly fast speed of before. As if he doesn’t want to alarm Levi. Doesn’t want to put any indication into a fight. It could be taken either way. An act of submission or deception.

Levi knows Eren is skilled at both.

He has done both at once. All to reach his own aim. Out of everything, it is for this Levi would like to praise him.

Levi’s grip on that blade, truly sharp, what feelings, what thoughts had Eren had as he honed this blade? Levi knows. Having killed with so many swords, the care put into this blade, and the others- Eren is truly-

A garbled noise is made, deep from the throat then out the roof of the mouth, in effort of trying to recall speech. But besides the frantic frenzied roar, growls and barks, this noise is much like them and this creature knows not how to make otherwise. Still in comparison to them, it is the closest this form has gotten to human speech.

What it is being attempted to be said is probably-

_Corporal Levi._

Levi decides.

It is time to run with assumption.

The greatest, most hoped for scenario.

Whether he does so in desperation or based on the evidence before him does not matter.

“Good boy. Eren.”

Within this form, finally- Eren has maintained his sense of self, if that be the case then-

_They can fight._

Levi goes over that which they must do, that which they will do. Ingrained with what is to be done. Levi does not shift position until he sees Eren’s titan form nod. If Hanji were here she’d be having a bloody goddamn picnic.

They’re about to have one themselves.

Levi grabs at an ear, the ends of the wire still embedded into the shoulder, as Eren’s titan form starts to run, searching, ready. For more titans to fall prey. He runs for a short while across a field that’d have taken them hours to cross with no horses, even if they’d not run into any titan and be eaten by it.

Runs until finally they come across more titans, some munching, swallowing what remained of the soldiers that’d been on the scattering, fleeing horses. While titans won’t eat animals and show no interest in them, to suddenly lose your rider to the well trained soldier horse might be startling, not as much as the screaming from such rider. What order is this?

They are quick to act, Levi’s harsh reminder to being careful is always appreciated, as Eren grips the wire from his shoulder and pulls them out. From here they begin and will not be stopped.

Continuous motion.

Within the female titan’s grip, should a person find themselves, spun and flung, they not live long and their last moments unpleasant. It is with great unease and horror that finally, those who do spot them, notice who they be but not what they're doing. Hanji is the first to recognize who they are and what they’re doing. Crying out more in excitement than relief. 

That they can move as such-

With not enough gas remaining in the 3d maneuver gear, they’d adopted another way to still use the gear. Levi is used to not using as much as the gas in the gear as possible, that he not use any at all, ain’t this a dream come true? 

Eren is griping the wire and throwing, moving Levi around by it where his blade need be. Pulling Levi from harm’s way or flinging him up into the air from it and crushing the enemy with his own hands in the meanwhile, should Levi’s blade find one target but another need be put away in the next motion.

They continue as such, a coordinated massacre, as they make their way through the field, to the entrance of the town. There reinforcements are, but it seems Eren and Levi are more their reinforcement than they to them, as the two cut, hack, and smash through any titans that come into _their_ path, saving a few lives of the soldiers who might have perished in the struggle otherwise. 

It seems better to be done if they moved out of the way, and many retreat onto the roofs, looking for any instance where they might be of assistance. The first to either think of assistance that may be currently acted upon- recalling the details of the original plan given to her-

Mikasa rides out into the streets on horseback. She approaches the pair from the way they’d come through. Their kills already steamed into nothing, having cleared the way, with only some rubble to hop over, some from their overzealousness and some from the attack of the titans all those years ago when the wall had been first breached.

A large, strong horse she’d chosen. It can jump with not only its own weight but hers. Jumps are still taxing and it’ll tire soon. When she sees the titan the two are currently embroiled with fall, and too much rubble lay in the way, she quickly jumps up from the saddle of her horse. Checking that the knot of her hefty bundle is secure, then along the buildings- she latches wire and pulls herself forward, before running up along it. Jumping forth, in the air with no security in this point of time, before her wire latches onto the shoulder Levi has not landed upon as he regains breath during this pause Mikasa has waited anxiously for.

She lands safely.

“Eren! Eren! It is me, your family! Mikasa! Do you recognise me?”

That she has landed and that Eren is conscious within, Levi doesn’t doubt it’s not unsafe. Well as safe as it could be thinking back on before. It’s not like before, as was written in the record of Eren’s files. That time at Trost.

But Mikasa doesn’t know this, she cannot be entirely sure. Still she has placed herself here, in all faith, in all hopes that Eren will know her.  
Levi almost looks away from her exalted expression of gratitude and bliss when Eren’s titan form gives a slight nod, and keeps looking upon her. As if waiting for her to say more. When she does not, once more that garbled speech of before occurs, different sounds. Mikasa’s reaction is just as Levi’s had been.

Her name-

“I hate to break up this heartfelt reunion but we got a bunch of heartless freaks coming up in a bit. Care to assist us in taking them out? Mikasa.”

Mikasa’s expression darkens. Eren can say her name in any manner, any form. But when the Corporal says it…

She looks upon him sharply, but there is respect still present in her attentiveness to meet his gaze. Besides, he has asked her to fight with him once more despite all that has happened.

“Corporal Levi. I’ve brought you fuel for your gear.”

As she unties the bundle she’s been carrying that held the fuel canisters and some new blades, she thus hands over, she looks over the gear Levi is wearing and nearly flinches. 

The gear Levi is wearing is not his own but Eren’s.

This she can tell.

She has to stop herself from grinding her teeth as she continues.

“Is there enough time for you to refuel sir?”

Levi’s sigh is contemplative and almost annoyed, not at Mikasa posing the perfectly reasonable inquiries but to the threat approaching. Soldiers on the sidelines are thinking now be their time to shine, such an honor it’d be to assist the Corporal but he turns to Mikasa and clearly, loudly-

“If you would handle this as I refuel. That’d be helpful.”

Mikasa turns as if to leap forth and attack, but she looks to Levi once more before doing so.

“Corporal Levi. Please give it as an order.”

His sigh is annoyed this time, it’s a noise Eren is familiar with. They both feel the shoulders they’re upon tense.

The way Levi had been speaking had almost been like he was requesting it of her. Not at all polite, but too familiar for how Mikasa perceived them. Besides, with Levi returned to the battlefield as thus, it’d be good especially if any remaining newbies could see him as he should be.

It’s with much more harshness and feeling than she’d anticipated that he does give it to her as an order.

“Mikasa Ackerman. What the fuck are you doing dawdling making idle chat with me? Get your ass out there and put those meat slicing skills you’re so proud of to use.”

Her “yes sir!” rings in both their ears, even as she’d hollered it she’d already made her way to the closest approached titan and sliced its nape.

Gear refueled, and changed blades in hand.

“Eren. Mikasa and I will protect you. Make your way to the breach and seal it. Got it?”

The roaring noise in reply Levi takes as Eren’s “yes sir!” is nearly double as loud as Mikasa’s.

Levi retreats to some buildings alongside them. Some soldiers bewildered that this is Corporal Levi they’re seeing after so long, or being their first time. Their order inclined diligence is resumed when Squad Leader Hanji catches up to them, whatever preparations she might have made in assistance either complete or abandoned in favour of these turn of events.  


She’s flailing, hair even more wild than usual in her whirlwind to get here posthaste. Her greeting is without restraint.

“Levi Levi Levi LEVI LEVI IS THAT WHAT I THINK IT IS- HAS EREN-”

“Shitty glasses. Calm the fuck down. It’s exactly as you see. Your glasses on right ain’t they? You can interrogate him all you like when this is over. Ah, but not for too long. I have work for him to do still.”

Before Levi is gone he hears Hanji hollering after him.

“Interrogate isn’t so nice a word! Investigate is much more befitting!”

Hanji can’t hear Levi swear at her, but she knows that’s exactly what he’s doing.

Levi swiftly catches up from where Eren has dashed, to assist Mikasa who is killing any titan that dares come so much as a foot near Eren. While it peculiarly looks that none intentionally stand in Eren’s way, the ones that are there too slow or present by coincidence are cut down with effort felt speed. 

They fall into a combination of battle routines. Mikasa running alongside on the right and Levi at the left. Only do they break their usual formation when they end up unfavourably upon the ground, Levi landing much more lightly than Mikasa had thought possible of him, her own landing pounds her feet solid onto the ground. Breaking stone. Levi scolds her. Where you land is very important, in many cases for them- if you break what you need to land on, your feet ain’t gunna have anywhere to be- the fuck were you gunna do then?

Mikasa apologises, not all too apologetic. Levi admits he’s landed heavily before too, in particular against a titan’s face- kicking one in the nose now, almost nostalgic, as it gets too close and before anyone can blink he’s whirling round, slicing off the nape and landing once more just as lightly as before to where he’d been. Mikasa and he are back to back as they look up at the gathering titans about them.

Reinforcements would finally have their time to shine if it’d been anyone but humanity’s strongest, and the famed worth a hundred soldiers Mikasa Ackerman of the 104th Trainee Squad.

With them distracting this mass Eren has finally started to make it towards the breach in the wall…

Mikasa crouches a little, blades ready, a reverse grip that Levi praises with his own as he follows her suit. Two drawn back to one side is his signature, while hers are held about her in a faulty X.

“May I go with my instincts sir?”

“Wait for my orders. Your instincts are far too wild.”

Irony.

This plan relied on both Levi and Eren’s starved capacity for bloodshed and the more truthful fact of their physical state. With it, no matter the cost, victory would be at hand.

Truly it is here now, as Levi watches Eren’s titan form get closer to the wall. All attention on them. A hand strikes out and misses alongside him, while one, slowly reaches toward Mikasa-

She bites her lower lip, blood drips.

They’re not related by that blood but how alike they are, how akin. Eren does that as well, what she does, in times like these- no wonder it’s no feat for him to bite into his own hands-

The crunch they hear is not breaking bone but crumbling rock, as Eren comes to grip the tops of the broken wall having finally made it. Levi wastes no time.

“NOW!”

Within the breath of that he whirls up and round, cutting through more than three napes at a time. Mikasa smashes a kick into the side of a titan’s head and following Levi’s example, jumps from it to bring her to a speed she’d not known before. Getting used to the balance of it, only then is she too able to cut more.

Mikasa is strong, she too is calculative, but her physical strength she sometimes relies on in compensation for lack of experience and method. If Levi could teach her method then surely a finer sword she’d be.

They’re stuck here in this space, until every titan has ceased moving or is a steaming carcass. Usually Hanji would be here either foaming in excitement or agony, given how much observation she could manage or bemoan inability, but she’s made her way along with a portion of soldiers and assistants near to where Eren is. She gets to see it up close.

In alarm she orders for them to all fall back. They jump, fly, skid as fast as they can, some fifty feet or so away than they’d been only moments before. Eren had taken the wall in hand. He’d turned around after reaching it, and bringing his arms up to clutch at the upper portion of the wall that remained had started to steam. Had his form reached its limit and was he reverting to his usual form? 

The titan form is a vessel more than an alternate self so that was not what was happening. The vessel was changing form.

The flesh of the titan was burning cold, they could feel it, harsher than the remaining winter breeze. A freezing temperature as a sharp crackling noise was heard, like ice being broken. Tundra they know not of. Within the remaining light of dusk, orange and red, glossy and reflecting, clean crystal starts to formulate. Not at the same speed as Annie’s had, and not of the same sustenance. Hanji does not think this crystal Eren is formulating is red from the light over the horizon but of something else. Blood?

Either way his titan form has dissolved away and in its place is red red red crystal. It’s smooth, captivating to look at as clear blue sky might be before suddenly there is that loud sound again, the cracking thunderous. Sharp, 2-dimensional diamond shapes jut out in eruptions all along the surface. The crystal has spread over the entire gap of the way and spreads even further, all along wall not even breached. Spreads at the pace blood may seep from a knife wound in the gut.

The red crystal becomes textured as it ages and from it harsh spikes jut out until they move, from the wave of its growth, seeping into the larger body. The pace of its growth slows until it looks it has stopped completely.

In the meanwhile Wall Maria is sealed until enough titans are exterminated.

Then after shiganshina is sealed to block where Eren rests.

And where the basement lies.

They cannot reach it.

They have not the key.

It is on Eren’s person.

When they’d dug as far as they could go under Eren’s destroyed home, they found the entirety of the ground where the basement should be covered in similar crystal. It’s not red, but a similar shade to that of the crystal Annie had formed. They’d tried. Steel. Fire. Stone. If anything could break it it’d have to be this crystal…

All that is left to do is hope Eren could eventually emerge from his slumber.

Hanji is still analyzing the crystal she’d broken from Annie. 

The material it’s made from looks to be in relation to that of their swords.

But it’s a distant cousin.

Is that why they can’t get along?

They’d built a small enclosure around where Eren has sunk down back to the ground, the hunk of crystal that surrounds him is smooth and deceptive. As if it might break any moment. But even from the rest of the crystal that’s layered out along the walls, it is the thickest. For it makes up where the wall no longer be. They’re building new wall outside the gape Eren has sealed. It’s strange, but along the wall where Eren has seeped his crystal, no titans roam near.

Construction is going well. Aside from a few stray titans they face little trouble. The higher ups sated for now. Once summer is upon them the titans that’d resided in Wall Maria are near all exterminated. People have started to come back to live here, and with the land regained, farming resumes, survival continues.

Shiganshina is still sealed off to the public. A good majority of the Recon Corps reside within it. They have jurisdiction over Eren and the basement of his home.

They cannot advance without one or the other, though it’s likely without both nothing at all can be done.

As a security measure they built a roof that doubled as a door that is guarded and unable to be lifted without the strength of five soldiers or humanity’s strongest. It’s a large opening, in the case Eren wakes and transforms he will only be hindered, not confined.

The other opening is a small wooden door, lined with iron bars. A pathway is made to it adorned with brightly growing flowers, so it be obvious when there is a much lighter or darker figure walking along it, approaching Eren. The flowers are tended by those that remain from the 104th Trainee Squad. Some of them are wary to enter the room and see Eren sleeping beneath the crystal. Some were angry at first, such as Jean who hollered a good day or two for Eren to hurry the fuck up and get out so they could finish this shit once and for all. Connie had joked it was a game of cards surely won, since Eren who seemed lucky with cards and was prone to winning always won against them… but Sasha had said she needed to go to the toilet and ran off. Mikasa’s visits are long, she tells Eren about her day after dinner, or asks him to wish her luck in the morning. Her conversation isn’t long but the time she remains in there near him is. Armin likewise. He brings back books from his family’s library, and reads the familiar ones to Eren. They’re going to go outside the walls one day and one day closer it is! Thanks to Eren… Armin laughs at how funny it all is. Eren rebuilds the walls they one day will tear down.

Hanji is with Levi tonight when he visits Eren.

She’s carrying the lantern.

There’s a small bet going around on who visits Eren the most, the sister or the Corporal?

The last time Erwin had accompanied him; he usually visits alone.

“It’s rather grim if you do something like that.”

“What?” Levi is asking as he wipes down the crystal as he does every visit. It doesn’t really get dirty but…

Hanji shifts next to him, the gesture seems rather uncomfortable for her.

“If you care to it like that and bring him flowers. It’s like this is a grave.”

Levi looks to the bouquet of roses he’s laid down before where Eren’s feet are. Almost scowling. Red couldn’t go with red could it?

Hanji looks about the edges of the room where crystal seeps out from, they’d had to build atop it. 

With the success of taking back Wall Maria the Recon Corps’ existence is secure- their budget, and their enlistment had skyrocketed. Given how lax the job was at this point in time and their achievements it wasn’t surprising. That Eren is sealed away might also have something to do with it. Even though many now saw him more favourably than before. There were even people from the church who’d reformed, and altered their beliefs. Indeed the walls be worshiped and shouldn’t those able to repair the wall as Eren had be of godly status? There was a surge of support from the public, even the nonreligious that the church make Eren a saint or some such like. People even wanted to make pilgrimage to him.

Levi asks her what the fuck that means and if she’d been speaking too much with that damn priest again. They weren’t getting anything but shit from him. Not useful at all shit. Hanji begs to differ with the insight she was gaining.

“It’s not really a term used much for us nowadays is it? Since it’s a word that’s associated with traveling a great distance. It means for the religious folks to gather to a certain place to show their devotion.”

“Don’t they have the church for that?”

Despite that be what Levi had said, he looks like he would burn every single church to the ground and every worshipper in it if he had to hear any more of this stupidity. That a good deal of people had not been religious had become religious upon their actions. Was annoying.

Hanji’s laughter borders a snort.

“Well some of them do but that’s not the point. The point is the journey and where you end up. It’s got to be far and I guess in the case of many Wall Maria is pretty far.”

Levi’s expression is sour and Hanji almost pats him on the back but thinks against it, it’d be a spoiled motion considering what she says next.

“You can’t blame them can you? Eren did such an admirable thing! You’re not the only one who wants to lay flowers at his feet, whisper sweet words to him, press kisses against the crystal for him-”

Hanji stops talking when she feels cold steel beneath her chin. That pistol that Levi had not been bluffing about to the priest is still on his person.

“Not. One. Single. Civilian. Is allowed fucking in here.”

“I got it I got it I’m not a civilian put that away will ya! I wouldn’t tease you this bad if I weren’t feeling for you, what’s a little joke to ease the tension?”

Hanji is surprised when Levi puts away the pistol and his expression of murder from before is all but gone away. This is almost nonverbal agreement on his part. Hanji is amazed and almost feels bad.

Levi wonders if he should get a vase for the flowers… but Mikasa might… accidentally break the vase and use that as an excuse to toss the flowers out with it.

Hanji’s voice is bewilderingly soft to what it usually is and Levi looks to her in vague interest.

“Do you think he’s alive in there?”

Levi places a hand to where Eren’s heart is, over the smooth crystal, frowning, if he always does this he’ll always have to clean it. His prints. His marks.

He has to.

“I do.”

Hanji wants to confirm with Levi what she’s been thinking.

Levi continues, as she wanted.

“Hanji. The crystal along the wall. It’s still growing isn’t it?”

The light from the lantern is fading. It gleams upon Hanji’s glasses as she lowers its glow. Perhaps they should go soon.

“That’s right. It’s growing slowly now but it’s still growing. We don’t know what’ll happen once it covers all of Wall Maria. Won’t it be great if Eren wakes up by then?”

Before then.

They’re afraid what might happen if the crystal never stops growing.

They speak a little more on that matter before the light is dim enough that Hanji is sure that even though Levi told her to take the lantern; with it and the guide of the starlight she’s still bound to trip over her own feet with her vision.

She looks back to the room as she walks by a bush of bright blue hydrangeas where Levi is still looking at the crystal Eren sleeps within. Wondering if she should have left the lantern with him. He’d told her he’s much better at moving in the dark than she. She knows this but still… she gives up when she realises how silly she’s being. Getting all worried like this. Levi isn’t going to be out of that room until daybreak anyway.

When Levi sleeps there, is he able to dream the same dream Eren is having?

That’s probably one of the only questions she doesn’t allow herself to ask him.


	4. Chapter 4

Two years have passed.

It’s lightly raining as they mount their horses.

Jean looks forward to where Mikasa is, closer to the head of their group’s formation by Corporal Levi. She pulls her hood up, blocking his view of her dark hair, long now that it must be tucked into the mantle.

The group of soldiers ahead of them is being lead by Commander Erwin with Armin nearby. Older recruits who are to them new recruits. With the added funds from their many sponsors, came more enlisters. Support from the people rose even higher from the land regained. Businesses that had been or could be flourished once more with the added space and less starved. As a result their reputation was far above what it had been. Collaborating with the Garrison, the wall was repaired and with permission from the King due to the high favour the Recon Corps was now seen with throughout all the walls- for the sake of research and preserving the hope of humanity, the shiganshina district was prohibited to only the Recon Corps, a select of the Garrison and what of the Military Police the King sent.

Levi and a group of soldiers that include Mikasa and Jean are at the centre, guarding the group behind them mainly composed of Hanji and her fellow researchers. Sasha and Connie are in her group. With the reclaimed land and the possibility of the wilderness outside the walls one day to be theirs, living out in the woods was foreign to many even after a soldier’s trainee days. Sasha and those that remained of her village had come out from the mountains in Wall Rose to the regained Wall Maria to teach those in the Recon Corps of what sort of terrain and tribulation might lie in living upon the world outside. It could not all be the same, but it would help. Some information was even gathered from old banned texts and distributed as what was becoming known as the “Feather White Pamphlet”; details on the outside world and what may be expected reveled and feared. Despite it was a very science driven pamphlet and the apologetic tone of it made it surmised by those who knew him for it be penned by Armin whose family had had forbidden archives on these topics… this pamphlet was hidden upon every visit of the Military Police though no doubt it’d been leaked to some extent.

The objective of this expedition is as thus.

They are to travel as far as they can, further than that they’ve ever before and gain information on the land beyond that they know.

Along with filling the hole in the wall, the red crystal from Eren’s hardening had spread and strengthened the wall... if it did more than that… Hanji thought so. With the crystal in place, titans that had approached the wall were not only easier to kill but didn’t seem to register their presence. After a good deal of them had been eliminated it was expected titans would still approach the wall. However months passed and each titan killed equated less seen, what was then concluded from their less eventful expeditions was this- the crystal was providing a barrier or a repellent to titans and for an unrecorded (but vast) amount of miles- titans now stayed away from the wall.

With these findings from their last expedition they set out now to determine exactly how far they can go from the wall before they encounter any titans. The last time they had deemed at least two days worth of travel spent at average speed without rest- they could have advanced farther but they’d not brought enough provisions so they’d returned home… but even on the way back they did not encounter any titans.

It was almost eerie, and funny in its own way that as they traveled and braced themselves… that no titans be seen. Some became giddy, some creeped out and if you were Hanji- it was great disappointment that was being beared.

Expeditions are now being approved more often, and are done more often as result, from the support of the masses who now no longer think it a waste of time. With the added enlisting soldiers, and the lesser chance of dying than before- being a soldier of the Recon Corps was now even called an honour with all meaning and feeling.

To most.

This time they are well equipped with greater, plenty supplies and many more reinforcements.

They’ll see just how far they can go until they encounter the titans.

If there are less than they thought… if there are not many more to be seen for such an extended period… then maybe humanity can gain more territory. With the help of the Garrison and if Eren were to wake up, then a new wall could be built. More land to be had, more food, more people. 

Such was how talk went, and rumors flew.

Such is the power of hope.

In only two years had this all occurred.

Erwin and Armin’s group would lead and take note of the landscape, they would then signal where Levi’s group should divide, deeming where it be likely or be for fact- where titans are. Corporal Levi’s group would then by Hanji’s group’s judgment- kill or capture the present titans.

If these titans are like the ones Connie had encountered, if they are different from the selected captured ones that’d made residence within Wall Maria, or the ones that’d lingered by the wall… it was in their interest (heavily supported by Hanji) to find out.

Along with that and mapping out the area, the usual fair of capturing and killing titans, that is their mission.

\--

There hadn’t been much trouble until they’d come across the mountain.

The change in height in the land was to both their advantage and disadvantage.

While it gave leverage for them to fly high above the titans, it was also unfamiliar, and the rock was even different to the rocks back within the walls. The 3d maneuver gear didn’t take to it well, though by hammering their blades in could they prevent a more than fatal fall.

Over these years Hanji and her group had not only been researching titans but also trying to better the 3d maneuver gear, to make it more durable, use less gas, and for the blades to cut deeper without as much force extended.

They will have to take some of the rock back with them to figure out how to make the 3d maneuver gear hold better.

If they survive.

Not all of them have to.

That is a bleak and terrible thought, with their added force and advancement in the world, the less titans- they might have gotten a little soft.  
Without Eren on the battlefield, Mikasa thinks she has gotten far weaker than she could ever intend.

She grits her teeth from where she’s collapsed against the mountain.

She’d climbed high, but the sudden jut of earth had led to a whole other landscape, one that had titans, when she’d just been scaling the rock surface further to avoid… other titans- she’d had to jump quickly, shifting to the right, she’d moved down to avoid them at an angle as to escape both groups. She’d succeeded in out running the ones below her but there were much more above her and in her haste she’d gotten caught on this rather steep smooth cliff. She’d rammed her blades into the cliff to hold her from being too close to the ground where titans may be as well. In all this flurry of motion she’d gotten tangled. Her 3d maneuver gear not used to this rock, and she herself caught off guard from not having encountered titans for so long, she’d been regretfully overly careless.  


What mainly had become a problem was her hair.

Waiting for the day to come when Eren would wake up and scold her to cut it-

She’d grown it out.

She almost wants to laugh but the back of her eyes hurt too much.

See? Eren you were right…

It was exactly as he’d said.

Her hair had gotten stuck in the tangled wire. Some of the wire far imbedded into the rock of the cliff or falling out, crossing up over her torso and about a leg, she could cut the wire and forfeit the equipment and thus her life, or she can cut her hair and forfeit her hopeful intentions, both of which she has neither desire to do. So she is hanging here, not caring much over how ridiculous she must look. One arm is slammed against the rock as the bottoms of her feet are, keeping enough purchase so that her hair isn’t pulled from her, while the other hand is with blade, that of which she rammed into the rock to anchor her where she be now.  


She’s thinking she must really give up and cut her hair… it will grow back.

But it pins her, binds her and causes that steady breath she’d maintained even in these last couple hectic minutes to be caught within her as she is stuck upon this cliff.

The thought.

If she cuts it.

What if that will make Eren only stay away longer?

What if by some superstitious myth, by some will of luck, by some curse of fate- would it mean another two years, and many more- that he’ll sleep without seeing this developing peaceful world he helped bring about? 

While it is still cruel, it has become more beautiful.

She knows it’s stupid, she knows it isn’t rational, logical, or by any means possible- but the second this impossible “if” springs into her mind _Annie is still sleeping, she’s been sleeping longer than Eren_ \- she cannot move. She cannot make a decision.

For a few moments even death seems more appealing.

How bad could the fall be?

Who says she couldn’t fight without her 3d maneuver gear?

And in that question lies a previous answer. When she’d been in danger without it Eren had come saved her then.

No.

He can’t now.

She’s about to swing out her blade and finish this once and for all when the hissing and splattering of blood that steams away into nothing rains above her.  


Corporal Levi has slain the couple of titans that’d been reaching for her.

They probably wouldn’t have been able to get her but they might have fallen over the cliff in effort. What that might have done she won’t know. Corporal Levi makes fast work of the remaining who barely seem to notice him amongst them even after he’d slain their kin.

When it’s clear above (or near it) he scales the cliff, not having the sort of trouble Mikasa has had like many others- in adapting how he uses his gear for this different sort of rock. Mikasa would feel a little embarrass at her own performance but she’s past all that given her current situation. 

Besides this is Corporal Levi.

He’s imbedded the wires of his gear to the trees up on the cliff, not too close to the edge, and is lightly ascending to where she is.

He also stabs a blade into the cliff, using it as purchase for his feet so he can reach farther than otherwise had he not.

“What the hell happened?”

He asks her, he honestly seems rather baffled this could happen at all, mainly to her.

She informs him of what had happened earlier.

He surveys the area before making a decision. It consists of neither that’d she’d been considering.

“Hold still.”

Corporal Levi begins to untangle her hair. It takes a long while, hours, before all of her hair is apart from the wires. He has her withdraw the wires and then finally release her blade, now too deeply imbedded into the cliff to be taken back. Since it can’t be deemed safely from here if her 3d maneuver gear is still functional, Levi hefts Mikasa up into his arms in the way men of valor did in the storybooks Armin would read to Eren and her as kids- and she almost chokes on the slight guffaw that wants to come out from the very bottom of her chest.

Corporal Levi carries her up onto a branch of a tree that he deems is high enough and sturdy enough to hold them both. Upon it he asks her to turn her back to him and kneel.

Mikasa is hesitant at first, but then obliges, unsure how this will help check her 3d maneuver gear.

But it is not the gear Levi wants to check upon.

It is her hair.

When she realises this she makes a move as if to resist but-

“What did I say? Hold still.”

Mikasa bites at her lower lip but abides, so he meant for that one statement to mean this entire time? How long a time? Such a prickly, unreasonable old man-  


He’s taken out a comb, some scissors. He combs her hair. He dampens the teeth of the comb with some water, before dampening the edges of her hair, trimming it. Wiping the comb dry before combing it through her hair again. Mikasa waits for him to cut more.

He does not.

Instead she feels her hair being drawn back, tightened.

Corporal Levi is braiding her hair.

He fashions it into a bun that’s pinned up much more tightly than it probably should be, donned with a blue ribbon that clearly could not have been for her. She sees the edges of it in the mirror Corporal Levi has her use.

“Why?”

Is all she asks, surprised he’d not cut it to a shorter length, to her shoulders maybe as would have been proper.

Levi almost snorts.

“Idiot. I thought you valued your life more. I didn’t take you to be the vain sort, but I suppose that ain’t it. Hair is important to you isn’t it? Otherwise you would have cut it the way it was when I first met you.”

Mikasa is quiet, looking into the mirror again, the front locks, shorter than the back remain. Her hair had been nearly waist length. Compared to Sasha who kept hers in a ponytail, and Krista who’d pulled hers back and given it a cut so it was at her shoulder blades (though if it remains so, they wouldn’t know- Krista had been taken by Ymir that time Reiner and Bertholdt had gotten away, Ymir with them) Mikasa must have appeared vain to those who did not know her. Foolish to those who did.  


Mikasa touches at the back of her head lightly. Done ever so cleanly, precisely, this cannot be the first time. She wonders.

“Do you… have a little sister, Corporal Levi?”

Mikasa hands him back the mirror and along with the comb and scissors. Levi packs them away. His answer comes neither abruptly nor from an extended amount of time.

“…her hair was much shorter than yours and she never was one for something so elaborate.”

Mikasa draws her hand down, folding her hands in her lap. She glances over to Corporal Levi who doesn’t look directly at her. He’s already thinking ahead to what else they must do. Scanning the forest floor below for titans, for comrades.

“You should cut your hair when _you_ want to. Or not cut it, whatever the fuck you want. But don’t kill yourself over it. Got it? Mikasa that’s the only order I’m going to give over this matter.”

She rises to her feet.

They check the 3d maneuver gear and as it works, they head out back to where they’d last seen their group, the others-

Along the way two signals flare up. Coming from opposite directions.

“So tell me, which way do your instincts tell you to go now?”

Mikasa sharply veers right.

“I won’t die over here Corporal. Can you say the same should you follow the path I’ve not taken?”

Levi takes the left.

“Got it. My hair has already been cut.”

Mikasa doesn’t want to admit it’s a smile that’s on her lips (since that was one shitty joke) as she comes upon the reason for the signal by Hanji’s group, but she tears down it with the ferocity of wolf upon its prey. 

Hanji calls to her to try to capture the target. It’s an irregular, its arms far longer than its legs. Mikasa takes care of that first, whirling around faster, sharper, using up to the extent her wire can go, she wraps it around the titan’s arms, not tightening the hold until she crosses back and under, over, tying it up she pushes back with all her weight for an inescapable knot that she reinforces with the plowing of her feet, pushing back into the earth she lands upon and with a toss of a blade that pins the hands down.

Jean lets out a sigh of relief as they’re saved, though their causalities had been right off the bat- the reason they’d put up the signal when they realised they alone couldn’t kill or hold this monster down.

They cut off the backs of the feet, tying them up and tethering the titan down in the time it takes to regenerate the tendon there.

It looks like this one will be compliant. Connie tries to give Sasha a high five but she’s intent on staying behind the bush she only retreated behind after the danger cleared. Shaking her head and telling him to please leave her be for a moment. She’s always more frightened at a bound titan they won’t kill over a titan unbound they intend to kill.

There’d been a few other titans but he and some other soldiers had gotten to them.

Jean glances over to Mikasa.

When she’d landed he thought it might not have been her. But it had to be with that skill, that speed. The only one who surpassed it being Corporal Levi, though Mikasa had gotten closer to his level over these past couple years (some had said and Jean agreed).

It’d been as if the wind kicked from his gut from the second thought that she’d cut her beautiful black hair _again_ but on closer look it was done up; he couldn’t decide what he liked better.

When he doesn’t give Connie a high five, Connie smacks it to him into the small of his back.

“Don’t worry! There’s nothing on _my_ hand Jean!”

Bullshit.

It’s actually mud which is much better in retrospect but-

Connie is already running.

“Hey! HEY! CONNIE GET BACK HERE YOU ASSHOLE!”

As Jean chases Connie in circles and Sasha goes to see if she is physically and emotionally capable of helping the others, Hanji looks over Mikasa’s work. Testing the wire, a thoughtful hand at her chin.

“If only it were longer then…”

\--

Armin trembles. Part of his mantle is splattered in blood from when a titan had come right up and bit the comrade that’d been next to him in two.

One half eaten.

The other half is on the ground. The titan hadn’t been able to finish eating because Corporal Levi had come right at that time and sliced the nape off. Cleanly. Before he’d proceeded to do the same to the four other titans present, all in varying sizes. 

The irregular much like that which Hanji had been dealing with only this one with its arms much shorter and its legs longer- that it had to crawl about to get around. It looked utterly ridiculous. 

Running across its sloped back Corporal Levi had jumped to give added force into his cut but had ended up whirling around instead of cutting it from where he’d been. Though it’d been an optimal place.

At first Armin had thought it peculiar, since Levi was not the type to taunt when it gave no benefits (such as it had when the titan had a shifter inside, or when he’d not been working at top speed to prevent his comrades from being eaten) so he at first couldn’t tell why Levi had swung around to face the titan before killing it when he’d just been by its nape.

Armin sees it is because Levi had not wanted to use the blade he’d originally set the handle upon and to ensure that he’d not be taken advantage of in the time it took to switch the blades and to make sure that the cut he’d make would be deep, he’d added this movement to put more strength into the strike of what had to be a duller blade.

Why? Why use a duller blade when he still had a sharp one available to him?

Armin thinks momentarily, self-doubt and crushing cynicism towards himself in tow- that it’s because it’s him that’s being saved that it’s like this but when Corporal Levi lands down next to him, the titans that’d been attacking them all annihilated he asks.

“That’s odd. Is it just you? I’d thought Erwin would not let you be alone. Where is that son of a bitch? Is he dead?”

It takes some time for Armin to gather a reply, he gulps. A little taken aback by how scalding Levi’s address of Commander Erwin is, as it’s harsher than usual even in the Corporal’s case.

“H-he was able to retreat into the woods with some of the others. The rest of us tried to get away but…”

The rest had been killed.

Many of them had died protecting him.

While Corporal Levi has been by Commander Erwin’s side far longer than he, it was known he too was close to the Commander, had that been why? Along with the value they placed upon the tactics, the strategies, and the information he compiled with the Commander, was that why they had fought so valiantly on his behalf?

The soldiers that’d died for him.

Was that why Levi’s response had been harsh?

Armin continues.

“They all died.”

Levi scowls at that. Armin knows it is not an expression that blames him but rather is the Corporal berating himself for not getting here in time. What regret he sees is fleeting though it must be vaster than that he’ll ever see. (Perhaps if he’d been Eren then-)

“Let’s go then. Confirm the rest are still kicking. You said into the woods right?”

Levi helps Armin to his feet; who is more than a little disappointed that he couldn’t find the strength on his own to stand, he wasn’t surprised but- as they enter the woods his steps grow sturdy and he stops trembling.

“Yes. I believe we should be able to reach them soon.”

\--

They meet with Erwin and what remains of his group.

Levi speaks with Erwin right away.

“That thing I was talking about earlier. Is it alright with you?”

Erwin nods.

“I see no problem with it. But is it really alright with you?”

“If you don’t see a problem with it then there’s no problem. Ain’t that how it goes? It isn’t like you to want another’s opinion.”

Levi glances over to Armin who’s getting the blood cleaned off with the help of a few of the remaining recruits. They must have been surprised that they got to ride with the Commander on their first expedition. One of them offers Armin her mantle but Armin declines. He’ll bear his stained one until they’ve returned home.  


Armin glances back. He’d been eavesdropping but he hadn’t been expecting Corporal Levi to be looking at him. He too hastily looks away and Levi sighs. The manner of nervousness is familiar and Levi rather not think upon it.

“Alright then, don’t regret when I do it ‘cause I’m not going to stop just because you couldn’t make your damn mind up for once. Erwin.”

Levi’s expression is sourer than ever but Erwin doesn’t seem to mind it.

They meet up with Hanji and the others shortly. Hanji is chattering away nonstop over this irregular. She wished they’d caught a regular one too but this will do for now. They’re making their way back to the wall now. When she somehow manages to remember it was not just capturing a titan that was their objective, Moblit brings out their recordings of the terrain to Erwin who compares it to Armin’s record.

They’ll look it over more carefully when they’re safely behind the wall.

Getting back home is the priority.

With a titan in their custody it might drag back with them others.

All the while they expect it but none appear.

As they draw closer to the wall the bound irregular, while being lethargic to begin with, seems to grow even more so. Hanji is furiously scribbling away in her notebook so Sasha has to direct Hanji’s horse, otherwise she might crash.

They return home with no problems. Occasionally they’d take a different route on reentering having departed through shiganshina where no civilians reside. Returning in this manner gave the impression they’d been gone a long time, with their accomplishments and better reputation their return through a district with civilians was always warm now. A means to show they were still working hard and had things in control. Compared to the situation of years before- this optimal condition, is perfect.

They don’t go through a civilian route today due to the captured titan and instead return straight to shiganshina.

The irregular titan is put away, next to the other subjects that Hanji has gathered in a field (probably it’d been a park) that’s enforced with walls by the Garrison. It’s after this, as everyone else is still putting away the horses, Armin has washed and is coming back from Erwin’s quarters with some documents he’d been asked to bring since he’d been up there anyway- that Levi decides. Now. He’ll do it now.

“Hey. Mikasa Ackerman.”

Mikasa hands the blanket she’d been folding to Connie who already has a pile. He tries to lump some of it onto Jean who’s trying to scuff off the worst of the mud on his boots as if that’ll allow him to put off properly cleaning them. He’s beat. They all are, even though they’d been on far worse expeditions. Especially when that seeker of death had gone with them.

“What is it sir?”

“Kneel.”

Mikasa looks affronted and Jean wants her to object, it’s muddy here but that’s not the reason why Mikasa hesitates. The last time she’d been told to kneel her hair had been done up. Now that the mission is complete and they are safely home, did Levi think she’d prefer her hair down? She wants to reject the order but she does as she is told. He hasn’t told her to turn around so-

It’s bright.

The sharp blade that Levi retracts from the gear’s multicompartment sheath is the one Armin had seen Levi retract after having mistakenly attached it to the handle, not too long ago when he’d switched to the duller blade. Many are alarmed as he brings that blade down and holds it at Mikasa’s shoulder.  


It is not this action nor Levi’s words that are causing the shocked expression on Mikasa’s face.

“With Commander Erwin’s permission, I’m promoting you to the rank of my Lieutenant. Do you accept?”

It is the blade.

Mikasa’s brow furrows as she looks up at Corporal Levi, a sudden serious determination present, even more heavy than usual as she replies. A salute over her heart, her other arm tucked behind her.

“I do sir.”

Levi hefts the blade up and crosses it over her head to her other shoulder.

An old action.

“Rise. Lieutenant Mikasa Ackerman.”

Does he intend to make fun of her through the customs of lore Eren had so loved to hear?

Levi has barely begun to put away the blade when Mikasa rises to her feet, knees still bent as she slams a hand over the exposed hilt of the handle of the blade. Crushing her grip over it and the tops of Levi’s fingers. The blade cuts into the earth.

“Corporal Levi. This sword. Please. _Give it to me._ ”

The blade that Levi had unsheathed, has been saving.

When Eren and Corporal Levi had emerged from the wilderness, Eren had been without his gear because Levi had been using it. But during that time as Mikasa saw Corporal Levi use the gear, and fought besides him, a single blade had not been used through the entire operation. When the gear had been retired that blade had been missing, or had it been used and she had overlooked? No. It is because that blade is in Levi’s possession and remains so.

The gear he possesses now is entirely his own, except this single blade. Mikasa can tell. She knows- this blade- _is Eren’s_.

“I cannot. Lieutenant.”

Mikasa will not back down.

“Not even as commemoration?”

“It’d be a waste on you. You are not able to wield this sword.”

Mikasa’s frown deepens.

“How are you sure of that sir?”

Meeting her eyes, Levi’s glare isn’t even close to bearing the same heat as hers, it is absurdly cold and faraway, farther away than all those tales in Armin’s books. But the cold can hurt just as much as the heat.

“Because it is impossible for you to kill Eren.”

Mikasa’s hand slips away, she withdraws it and holding it against her- realising. This blade. Specifically Eren must have given it to Corporal Levi with the full purpose, with the absolute intent of being killed by it if need be. It is by Eren’s will that Corporal Levi is in possession of this blade.

She cannot take it even if she wants it. She hasn’t the right she thought.

That’s why.

“I understand.”

It’s true, she cannot kill Eren.

She feels the tip of the satin ribbon, cool on her neck. Prickling. She thinks. And finally wishes for it. What she should have as she remained trapped upon that steep cliff.

Then, until this world is no longer cruel. Until this world is only beautiful. Until this world is completely safe. Not until every single titan is eradicated from this earth. Far from the end this blade would bring she wishes Eren to be. That sleep she’d longed for him to wake from so she could see him, speak with him once more- it is fine. It protects him far better than she has ever, and if he could stay wherever he is truly now, locked away within some dream. The only thing she can hope is for it to be a warm, pleasant dream, surely full of the wonder of the tales Armin told them, of the expectations Eren held for the outside world, of the dreams he had long before they’d met.

Until the world is exactly as that she doesn’t wish for him to wake.

“In this world you are the only one who possesses the ability Corporal Levi.”

This old world.

Then she will destroy it.

And in the new, this blade that Eren has no doubt worked tirelessly upon to sharpen will not matter. It will be as if it a dull blade. No blade would matter, no swords, no knives. Steel nor blood.

If there can just be the limitless sky.

In the new world.

She will protect him there too when he wakes.

(From what?)

Levi does not sheath the blade until he cleans from it the bit of mud that’s gotten on the tip from being forced into the ground by Mikasa’s action. It was the only way to immediately prevent her from taking the blade.

After he’s stored it away she resumes her salute.

\--

Snow dusts the window pane.

A cold dark night it is.

Another year has passed and another will soon come.

Armin pulls himself up, drawing Erwin’s cock out of him as he settles himself along the much larger man’s chest. An almost tired sigh, primarily content passes his lips as he lies down comfortably in the place an arm had been. He draws his hand over Erwin’s breast and Erwin clasps the hand there gently.

It’s been a while since they’d done this and despite the passionate, hungered fucking they’d just engaged in earlier there’s a certain calm and peace now within the aftermath as they discuss lives in concurrence to their own.

“Don’t you think it’s rather harsh of you?”

Armin is asking him.

Erwin presses his cheek against the roof of Armin's head, vision scaping over the long silky golden strands of hair that cling about Armin’s shoulders and the hollow of his throat. Mikasa hadn’t been the only one to grow her hair out though she rarely had it down since that time years ago when Levi had showed her how to put it up. A dutiful subordinate, an almost sentimental successor. Both Levi and she would deny it. Words are cheap but actions- how heavily do they abide on them.

“It was time. We’ve already wasted so much of it. If I hadn’t done anything, Levi wouldn’t do anything.”

It was a basic concept.

Armin shuffles against him, as if he isn’t physically comfortable. It’s an action reflecting his digesting and processing of Erwin’s logic. Akin to his own, Armin still cannot help but find the likeliness arrogant of himself. It’s difficult to look upon a face similar to your own and recognise the distinct features with complete clarity.

“Jean mentioned he’d been getting worse.”

Since promoting Mikasa to Lieutenant Levi had been leaving much of his duties in her hands. It’d made Mikasa more capable, even more sociable, and she was most admired by her peers not just from her strength now but how she used such strength. With Mikasa doing what he had done over and over Levi had taken to withdrawing himself even further from the company of others. Even going as far as deflecting orders Erwin gave him directly to Mikasa who did her best to carry them out. 

These days were more peaceful and what was required of them was not always an endless bloodbath, a dark tunnel with only a pinpoint of light at the end. Sometimes it was within vibrant sunlight they did what they must do and to that Levi found something disagreeable.

Eren is not there with them.

Still he sleeps within that red crystal; it has since stopped growing along the walls. All of the walls having been restored, enforced by stone and rock and wood of the Garrison. Should the crystal ever break or disappear, the wall is sealed in other ways.

Eren could wake up now, he could have woken last year, the year before-

But still he sleeps.

And most often than not that is where one would find Corporal Levi.

All those bets placed years ago have since been cashed in, the victory to those who’d not bet on Mikasa. She still visited Eren; but now it is different. The look in her eyes has changed, what had been a hopeful look of uncertainty has long since passed into one of great determination, a fevered prayer that could match those with faith- until she has killed all the titans in Eren’s place- she wishes he never to wake.

Jean had talked to Armin of this. How every expedition (and the Recon Corps has grown in such number, and the amount of titans near the wall has decreased to such- that not only expeditions were ever more frequent they are even _safe_ in so little and not as close knit groups) they who go with Mikasa spend it in coordinated frenzy. Riled by words of inspiration that mirrored many Eren had said to them before as trainees. She is living in his place for the both of them. And it is the dream he spoke of to them many a time that she pursues, a hunter relentless upon the heels of its ever escaping prey.  


Jean accompanies her every outing beyond the wall. 

He is with her now.

Though usually near her side as a well known companion and one from the same trainee group and a formidable user of the 3d maneuver gear (Hanji especially liked to ask Jean to test out the gear her crew and she had been modifying, since he could tell right away if it made a difference or not); it was at the end of this group he’d been. Hurrying to catch up to those who’d just departed , having report to Armin his efforts to get Corporal Levi to join them. Jean had thought, maybe if Corporal Levi went out beyond the walls again and killed some titans he would do something other than “mope around that death seeking bastard’s grave” though saying the word grave made Jean uncomfortable. But it was much like that, the path surrounded by flowers and the inside of that room Eren slept, near a tomb. If Eren never wakes up he is as good as dead to them. 

Those are thoughts of people without hope.

Armin knows Eren will wake one day, he’s woken many times before.

But he also knows Erwin is right.

Eren will never wake unless something is done.

And Corporal Levi-

He has gotten older.

He’d always been much older (Erwin confides that Levi is even older than he, but only by a few years) than many of those in the Recon Corps, not a laughable feat given the record. Despite it he never looked quite his age, but now it creeps upon him. Wrinkles with those dark circles, greying hair on the undercut, his leg bothers him on more than rainy days, and if you thought he was irritable before…

In comparison Erwin is the more youthful of them, his dreams and ambitions coming together to the final stage, and celebrated. Even though he’d lost his arm, it’d done little to hinder him from going forth and reaching for what it is he wants.

It’d been out of his control he’d said.

A blatant, unashamed lie.

Erwin had told Levi to his face and Levi knew it was a lie. But he’d known Erwin for a long time, and he knew the reason behind the lie was much more important than the lie itself. He’d left in a fury. Slamming the door after Armin had crept into the office, hours before. The usual neverending bundle of papers in his arms.  


Levi had not spared him so much as a glance, not from disdain to him personally, nor because anger made him blind (if anything it made him sharper, gave him clarity and purpose, he knows it well and takes it not for granted but to advantage) but because it was natural for Armin to be there.  


Erwin had told Levi this-

The followers of the “new” religion, the worshipers of the religion that’d been gaining popularity before but had broken off into another branch with Eren’s success in regaining Wall Maria, could no longer be sated with excuses that the wall still need repair and that Eren sleeping away in the crystal be a possible danger (though that always remains, as they just don’t know, they don’t know if they’ll ever know)- with that in regard Erwin decided under heavy guard- worshipers who now claimed Eren as a deity, a saint- could make pilgrimage to him if they please and that would be that.

Worshipers would pay tithes, so it wouldn’t be an inconvenience.

The only thing that could stop this from happening is if Eren were to wake up.

Until Eren wakes, Levi is to oversee all this.

The bark had been so bad Armin had been sure Corporal Levi had bitten Erwin’s remaining arm off. That Erwin expected Levi to just sit back and watch as a bunch of strangers swarmed and ogled Eren as if he were some shop display or rare jewel- it wasn’t like that- Hanji could explain and probably had but she was not there then, as Levi slammed his hand upon Erwin’s desk and the two men stared at the other. Levi’s threat of violence from the slight tilt of his head comparable to the set of Erwin’s shoulders and brow that clearly meant for Levi to go on and do something if he was going to do it.

It is duty.

In the end that is what it was and for that Levi had never been more enraged.

It was cruel to spur him into action on this accord yet to no other could he be moved.

Though he wishes to see Eren again, for Eren to be with them again, he like Mikasa understands where the safest place is.

A dream cannot hurt you like this world can, and its cruelties Levi is fully aware of.

Armin feels Erwin cup his cheek, drawing him from contemplation.

Jean had even tried to get Corporal Levi to wear the new winter uniform that’d been created, from their added funds and grateful citizens. Better equipped, newer and warmer. But it was not practical warmth, logical and inhuman that Levi wanted. He’d told Jean if he wore that unfamiliar uniform when that dumb brat woke up, he’d probably be confused. Wearing his worn mantle still and then Levi had turned away from Jean, though in the end he’d accepted the upgraded 3d maneuver gear. Equipping it with that blade he’d denied Mikasa; he’d set it up despite declining going out beyond the wall with the rest. For what Jean doesn’t know.

He’d told Armin.

Armin tells Erwin.

They know.

It is one monster they require, one heart that beats, there is one dream being dreamt though it’s been torn asunder and given the visage of a nightmare. Levi will not allow their vision to differ any longer. The value of resolve that’s drawn from being cornered. He is utilizing it at the sacrifice of his own dignity.  


Erwin has been called noble, but those who are not viewed as noble- when they do noble deeds does it not strike harder? Is it not grander? Purer?

Levi intends to strike harder.

“You’re a cruel man.”

Armin tells him and Erwin does not deny it.

\--

Levi is almost breathing heavily for once.

He’s sure almost a day has gone by. He knows from the amount of exertion he’s placed on the 3d maneuver gear and the dullness of the blades. Despite the upgrade it doesn’t seem to make much difference. Eren still slumbers within this crystal that can barely be cut (though that it can be cut is more than a milestone of success). Looking as if not a day has passed since he’d last walked with them under the same sky.

While the years toil upon them all it effects him not. Levi wonders if that will be a different story once he’s out of the crystal. He’s determined to cut Eren out. As he has before of his titan form, he will cut Eren out from this crystal at last.

He wants to run with him, fight with him, kill, breathe and live with him.

Every ounce of those desires he’s long suppressed since Eren became as that other titan shifter, an untouchable sleeping beauty- in the case they drive him mad, in the case they draw into his faltering vision the time they shared before, within that vast wilderness that seemed a world all alone to them-

Looking upon Eren’s face as he does now, he still recalls the scent of the cold. Probably the freshest scent that could be had within these confining walls.  


With it he recalls Eren’s warm scent, the heat of his body and the gentle but calloused careful touch of his fingers. The herbs and flowers he’d gathered to tend to sickness and fever. Levi’s mouth goes dry and his throat tightens. Is it a fever now then? Settling within his aching chest and the backs of his eyes.

Sweat slides down between the blades of his shoulders though the palms of his hands remain cool. The room is no doubt cold. All stone. And snow is falling outside.  


Levi contemplates the possibility that it will trap him in here and almost wishes it. 

Then Erwin and those bloody religious zealots could have a grand time trying to pull shit while getting buried in the damn snow.

Ridiculous.

All of it.

Levi recalls Hanji’s joking the first time he’d come here with flowers.

That Levi isn’t the only one who wants to look upon Eren, praise him, kiss him-

The bite is just as bad.

Though it is careful, each swing and each hack of his blades, drawn back in their signature form with added strength in every blow, still even as the crystal chips and hisses away in steaming slivers and chunks, it gives no substantial way, it is not enough. It will not allow Levi in. It will not let Eren out. Though he’s sure with every cut he’s been precise to wear the same place over and over. Still. It will not yield.

He jumps from one end of the room to the other, the floor and ceiling, whatever leverage to propel him further. No cut is deep enough.

It cannot be done.

It cannot be broken.

Imagination, ambition, determination, feeling alone has defied logic and the proven. But never has this crystal been broken, shattered, conquered. It will not free Eren. Levi cannot free Eren.

It was to be expected.

It is fortitude that Eren himself created, how it is created and what it is created of they not a clue. All they know is Eren has created it. Shouldn’t Levi have expected that he nor anyone could ever break it?

Even so.

Levi allows that madness to slip in, it cannot hurt to try, nothing ventured is nothing gained, he’s never been one to this thought. If your life is ventured, there is much likely to be gained, and death is one of those very likely things.

With little regard to his wellbeing now, to the state of his maneuver gear, to the blade he wields, he goes forth. The only feeling, the only vision- the only sound a steady reality of the thumping of his pounding heart. He breaks more than one blade, the gear overheats and protests with spurts of hot air, scalding. He’s cut more than his face, a bit of crystal or blade has left a gash about his brow.

His palms sweat now and his breathing is labored, his leg aches with more than a dull throb from the cold.

It’s not until no other sword remains but the blade Eren had left him that Levi must stop himself.

Drawing the blade into the earth right before it can strike, before it can hit the crystal, before it too can break, along with everything else. His body, his mind, that beating working crazed heart.

It’s not only his.

Eren had been careful with it.

The blade remains whole.

Levi leaves it.

Unworthy of touching it.

He approaches the crystal, pressing a disgusting, sweat and blood slick hand to the surface. Drawing his fingers over Eren’s cheek, where it is beneath the crystal he draws himself against it. Shuddering when he finds the crystal to be warm as if it too is flesh. If he is hallucinating from pain, from exhaustion or if it has always been as this. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t care.

He presses his lips against the crystal, lightly, breathily, a touch no doubt that would have made Eren mad.

When he’s done with that folly, he presses his brow against the crystal, breathing slowing.

The rapid beat of his heart pulses and echoes back to him.

Pressing his ear to the crystal Levi listens.

Upon hearing nothing but his own exertion.

“Hey Eren.”

Where you are now.

“Aren’t you supposed to wake up after receiving a kiss?”

Is it night or day?

“Brats who lie around all the time become idle, there’s still titans out there that have yet to be killed.”

Spring or Autumn? Winter or Summer?

“Who are you to refuse an order from your superior officer? I may have made Mikasa Lieutenant but that isn’t any reason for you to be slacking off. Hey Eren. Wake up. That’s an order.”

Light or dark?

“Wake up right now. You’ve yet to fulfill all of your duty so wake up. You talked real big but you’re full of shit. Have you killed all the titans? Course not. You’ve been sleeping away in there not giving a grand fuck for the rest of us. _Wake up._ Wake up you damn brat. We’ve got things to do.” 

His leg hurts.

“Eren.”

Warm or-

“Hey Eren, is it cold in there?” 

His sweat has cooled and the snow is still falling.

Aside from the crystal it is cold here.

Levi closes his eyes.

A dull throb, a hollowed roar. Finally he is heard and receives an answer.

The crystal smolders, hot and scorching, it consumes him, burns him, swallows him into it. Drinking up the blood he’d left behind, softened from the heartbeats that had been akin to the beating within.

The crystal is an organ.

Its surface and hard exterior transformed deception, it is as soft as flesh and as fluid as water as it absorbs Levi into it.

From there everything comes crashing down.


	5. Chapter 5

Levi wakes within a dream.

Above him hangs a scarlet sky.

His arm is outstretched aside him, upon cool ground where he remembers warmth once nestled against it. His arm is stiff and empty. Moving it towards him begrudgingly, it is the only discomfort he feels as he sits up. Noting with certain clarity the usual aches of old age and his wounded leg do not ail him here in this red world.

The earth is as scarlet as the sky, and the flowers and plants that surround him as crimson as the distant shore where the waves of a sea unknown crash.

He breathes in the fresh air and feels a peace colour over his restlessness.

Why had he been sleeping here in this peaceful field of flowers?

Of petals and leaves and stock he recognizes to be that of the same Eren had picked and hung in the den they’d once had to reside in to survive, in the wilderness that Wall Maria had held, cultivated at the rule of the titans and nary a human to thrive and touch it. They are flowers that had been pleasing, healing, calming. Herbs Eren had crushed to make medicine or flavour bland soup. Some surely of which had not been red nor could grow together and alike as all have accumulated here in this single field. In the distance are the towering trees of the woods and in the other distance the sky stretches over a vast body of water he cannot see the ends of.

Levi rises to his feet.

His 3D maneuver gear is no longer equipped but the rest of his uniform is intact. He pulls back the hood of his mantle and tilts back his head, his face to the sky, another deep breath.

The air here is clean, yet carries a familiar scent unhindered by the flowers about him, even as he steps forward from the bed of roses he’d been slumbering upon he cannot see them as truly roses, for he carries not a scar or wound from any of the thorns. (And their fragrance does not cling to him, but rather that faint scent in the air, Eren’s-)

He feels naked without a blade in hand under such a vast sky but he remembers he’d discarded it, that blade Eren had bestowed him, unworthy to carry it, hadn’t he surmised? He’s not a right to carry a weapon here. He needn’t any weapon here.

He steps across the many flowers, recognizing each and every one of them further as he carries forth, their assuring presence thinning out as he reaches the edge of a cliff that overlooks the shore of that large body of water. What had he thought of it upon waking? He does not recall, nor does he recall that this must be a dream.

Whose dream?

A path stretches out beneath his feet and winds up round by the woods to the high end of the cliff where a house resides, its back to that vast body of water as if it not a clue it is there. The house looks to be one more likely to be nestled against that of other houses in a busier setting, not this rural distant place, but here it be.

Though Levi has never seen it, it is familiar- so as a ship may in a storm, to the beacon of a lighthouse- Levi heads towards it.

As he nears the door his footsteps do not falter nor do they speed up, as if he has returned to this house many a time, and opened the door upon sunrise and sunset, he turns the doorknob with certainty it will not be locked and opens the door just as the red sun sets in a bright red sky.

The light is bright from the back windows, and floods into deeper crimson as dusk arrives as timely as he.

On the table before the sink is usually a vase. Levi feels as if he’s forgotten something now. The vase is in the sink instead, recently washed. Droplets of water still drying from it. The table is wide yet there are only two chairs set at it. To the table’s right is a hearth once lit, but now only black and orange embers remain where above them a pot had been slowly cooking a hot meal. The wood box by the hearth is full unlike the vase. He surveys the area, one he knows as well though he’s never set eyes upon it. Levi does not remember it has been briefly told of to him through Eren’s stories of when he’d been a child, a much younger child, this place he’d been raised where his mother had taught him how to set a fire and his father had taught him how to sharpen a knife.

If only Eren had described in greater detail then Levi would have known at this point in time that the home he’s entered had been Eren’s home back before Wall Maria fell.

He looks across to the left where other rooms are but does not feel compelled to enter further, towards them, rather where he is at the door’s entrance is the ideal place.

He wipes his shoes against the mat before stepping in and closing the door behind him, finally looking toward the window by the door, where Eren had often peered from after his father had left and taken naps upon the bench there despite his mother’s coaxing that he should always get proper rest in a proper bed.

Eren is there now, waiting again, huddled up in a blanket of furs that Levi knows with certainty he has lain upon before. Eren’s eyes are gently shut in his upright slumber. While Eren rests peacefully, such a position if stayed in for a long time would not be comfortable upon waking.

Even here Eren sleeps, looking as he had the day Levi had last seen him.

Seeing such a face, such a vision as he had seen beneath the crystal…

Levi steps further into the house, careful of his footsteps, wondering if the heated room or the sight of Eren is what is making the mantle too warm on his person now and if he should do without it.

Soon those dying embers will be the only source of light when night comes. But unlike in the cave where he was having problems seeing (not a problem he’d had in his youth, raised in the dark and dank underground) here everything is seen in clarity even in the darkness.

It is no longer a question of whose dream this is, but is this dream?

But that thought is whisked away as Levi moves to stand fully before Eren, looking down on his sleeping form, a tightness in his throat and chest as he surveys how dark and long Eren’s eyelashes are against his cheeks, his parted lips a temptation that robbed him many a night’s sleep should Eren be besides him or not. Instead Levi wonders-

What is Eren dreaming about?

Waiting by the door?

For who?

For him.

His inhale is ragged, stifled at this thought, then seized on the other. What if it was not him that Eren waits for now? What if he had tired of waiting? Just as Levi had- just as everyone had, then forced to make this decision (what is he talking about?) even though Eren is well and alive, safe and untouched here-

Levi leans forward, cupping Eren’s cheek, he draws his face near. If he kisses Eren now will he wake?

Eren tilts his face towards Levi’s touch.

It’s in this dark night.

That Levi draws back and folds Eren into his arms, to lift him, that blanket of furs coming with, as he carries Eren to the table and lies him upon it, the blanket beneath him, the ends upturned. A chair pushed aside. Still even after all this movement Eren sleeps. He’d always been hard, difficult to wake. Levi is hard now, able to see Eren’s exposed throat, the side of his nape as Eren turns his head in slumber, a cheek now resting against the furs, his hair briefly tussled from motion. An arm rests over his stomach where his shirt has ridden up a little and his feet are bare.

Levi starts with Eren’s trousers, he pulls them from him, clenching his teeth when their removal reveals only skin beneath them. His captured breath is shaky and tormented, as he holds Eren up to remove his shirt from him. For once the clothes are not folded as they reach the floor. Before Levi sets Eren to lie back down upon the blanket he touches at what has often annoyed him when Eren slept against him, and when he’d fucked Eren not on his hands and knees, but when Eren would embrace him, and they’d be face to face-

That key.

Cold at the start, then warmed by Eren’s heated flesh, a disruption when Levi had to urge Eren to take it off because if he tried Eren would refuse, whine and resist which only made everything harder. Levi wishes Erwin had never given Eren back the damn thing.

Levi slides it from Eren’s neck, a stealthy thief, not once in his life has he stole something all in order to keep another, coveted and claimed, but hadn’t Eren given himself to him? There is irony here that in order to keep what had to be the most important thing bestowed to him he must steal what is dear to them.

How awful.

How ugly.

How cruel.

Even this ideal world.

Levi tucks the key into his back pocket, bunching the string in there too with one hand as he sets Eren back down, it is ironic too that after waiting for so long for Eren to wake, within those few seconds he’d wished for quite the opposite.

He props a knee up onto the end of the table, so he may lean forward and hover over Eren’s revealed body. Inhaling that scent that been carried on the wind where he had slept in the flower field. His no longer bad leg half off the floor as he sets his hands aside Eren’s rib cage. Levi stretches forth to kiss his brow, a cheek, his throat, making his way down to a breast, his navel, until he sinks down, having kissed and licked his way there- to be crouched upon his knees, almost reverent as he parts Eren’s legs and kisses and nips at each inner thigh. His hands grip and slide from the sides of Eren’s hips to his buttocks and clenching his fingers upon them, Levi lifts and spreads them as he kisses at Eren’s cock, taking it into his mouth and sucking it as it hardens even as Eren sleeps, what sort of dream must he be having now as he gives a rocking sigh, a harsh pant, his body leaning and responsive to all of Levi’s advances.

From base to tip, Eren’s dick is slick from Levi’s saliva, hard and upright between their bodies and Levi’s stomach, as Levi rises to his feet again, thighs against the edge of the table as he grabs Eren by the hips and drags him closer to him. Wrapping Eren’s legs over his hips, unbuttoning his trousers, and pulling his shirt up. A few buttons ripped off so he may rub his erection against Eren’s own. How long he has waited, has wanted- he touches, pumps, caresses at Eren’s slick cock. Eren’s face turning the other way as his brow bunches and his mouth twists, opens, panting, his skin flushed and hot. Levi strokes his cock, once, twice, and thrice- before he tilts Eren’s hips and parts the cheeks of his ass, placing the tip of his cock at Eren’s asshole. He wants to enter Eren but before that he must finally wake him, this princess who has slumbered on far too long, how the world has changed yet remained the same in Eren’s absence-

It cannot move forward, just as Levi cannot if Eren never wakes.

Levi draws Eren up to him, clutching him in an embrace, as he cups the back of Eren’s head, his fingers in Eren’s dark hair, threading through the locks just as Eren often loved to do to him, reaching above the undercut- it is then finally, that when Levi leans forward does he kiss Eren on the lips.

Fully expecting, and consuming of the answer he’d received.

Eren’s eyes clench tight as his fingers do in closing against Levi’s half done shirt, and the flesh underneath, hot. Eren kisses Levi back and wakes from his slumber.

Lips red and wet, a trail of spit stretches between them as Levi pulls back to hear what Eren has to say as his eyes flutter open, those eyelashes he’d so admired moist and framing a bright and golden gaze, hazy, trying to solely focus on what is before him- but even before they can do that, Eren mumbles the first thought that comes to him on waking-

“Corporal… Levi…?”

Eren has been compared often to a monster, to a beast. Levi has from time to time made the comparison himself. But if that is truly so, what does that make Levi?

For they are one in the same.

He and Eren.

All this time, a starved and caged beast, caught from the wild and deprived of all sustenance and freedom. Alone and stranded, willed to be tamed and stifled. Levi cannot be many of those things any longer.

Levi kisses Eren harshly, hungrily, as he enters him, Eren rocking his hips forward to take all of Levi in immediately and deeply. When Eren draws back from the kiss to hear what Levi has to say-

With that gaze solely resting upon him, attentive.

Levi tells him,

“Eren, I’m home.”

Eren’s hands reach around Levi to draw him closer, his fingers clench into his shoulders, against the winged emblem. Corporal Levi has filled him, from tip to shaft, hard and familiar, unforgiving yet giving. Eren presses his brow to Levi’s to confirm his temperature, too much like his own right now for him to tell the difference. The pair, closing their eyes and opening them only when Eren sets to lie back, inching his hips closer though Levi cannot be more inside of him than he is now. Levi follows the motion and lies atop of Eren on the table, marveling at how soft Eren’s hair is even as it becomes slick with sweat. Sucking in his breath at how good it feels to be inside Eren again, and in his arms-

Eren replies to him,

“Welcome home, Corporal Levi.”

\--

They’re eating their meal while sitting on the floor because they’d broken the table.

They’re eating the soup Eren had made. When Levi praises it Eren accepts his praise with less warmth than he might have as it’d been primarily Levi’s fault the table broke, but he’s glad the soup turned out well- as it was his mother’s recipe and he is only replicating it. It’s enough warmth to make Levi hard again and push Eren against the blanket, Eren all the while scolding him to finish the soup first and asking if maybe they’d missed a part of the table to save for the fire- the splinters- there were luckily none and they finish their cold soup after Levi has cummed inside him again, Eren complaining the floor he’d so carefully cleaned for Levi’s arrival everyday is dirty again.

There’s dishes to be done, a bed to be made and slept in (yes slept in!) and a whole other set of chores that need to be done, they prepare a bath that Eren almost has to scold Levi about as well, on account of the water that’s getting on the floor. Eren commenting on maybe they have changed priorities and now he’s humanity’s strongest clean freak- he’s not much to say about that or the water that does get inevitably on the floor (and cleaned up in the morning) when Levi won’t take no or later as an answer that he feels can most certainly be yes and now. It had been Eren’s fault this time he tells him, he’d been dutiful and cleaned Levi’s back that when Levi had to return the favour it wasn’t the sort of science Hanji or Armin was always going on about that had led to what was clearly inevitable in this case.

Despite the bickering, the bath is enjoyable. They’d never been able to go into the hot springs up the mountain Eren had discovered, and they’d never been able to share a bath together on account of how small the tub had been. 

A little sleep is done in the bed that Eren insists Levi should have carried him to if he wanted to fuck him so badly but Levi tells him if he put a sleeping person in a bed where people do sometimes sleep then Eren definitely wouldn’t wake the fuck up. Besides they are in bed _now_ so it doesn’t really matter does it?

They hold each other in the dark, and to assure Levi, Eren does not fall back asleep until the Corporal does. Singing to him softly that traveler’s song that has journeyed far to come here.

It is only in the morning does Levi panic, briefly and startlingly, for he wakes before Eren and seeing him consumed by slumber again- but Eren always wakes with a kiss just as he had in the kitchen and (elsewhere) as the days pass, and continues to wake in such a manner so Levi’s unease is abated.

Eren takes him outside their home.

They go to the flower fields Levi had waken within and Levi remembers why the empty vase had been so odd to look upon, he’d forgotten to bring Eren flowers to fill it. They gather flowers together now, and some other plants that Eren will use the next time he makes soup.

They hunt in the woods, though never go very far into them or beyond them.

They pick berries and gather firewood.

They rebuild the broken table and sew more blankets for winter’s arrival.

The seasons come and go but never once do they visit that distant shore. 

Every time Levi tries to bring it up or lead Eren toward it, Eren draws him close for a kiss, or takes his hand to lead him elsewhere, and it vanishes from Levi’s mind, as if it is not so obviously there, that place Eren had longed to be- and they become engaged in something else, most likely each other and it’s not for some time that Levi brings it up again and this repeats.

They cannot reach that place.

Levi tries to go to it on his own but when he feels no resistance with Eren not at his side, he always stops himself. He was supposed to go there with Eren and though he feels he can make it there without him, Levi doesn’t want to. These few times they are parted from the other, when Levi goes home Eren is always there waiting for him.

At the start of it, there were only a couple times Levi will enter their home and find Eren has torn it apart. Thrown aside the furniture, opened all shelves, the firewood out from its keeping spot, the bed undone and the sheets on the floor along with the clothes from emptied drawers, only the flower vase remains untouched in Eren’s frantic search.

While Levi is away Eren makes the house a mess as he searches, searches, searches frantically, desperately, for something he cannot find. And it is only until Levi appears that Eren is comforted, and ceases looking for whatever it is. 

Is it the Corporal he had been searching for?

That must be it.

For he stops immediately when Levi arrives and has no recollection on how this horrendous mess he made had come about and why. Levi accepts each and every one of his embarrassed and stricken apologies.

But Levi knows.

Eren is searching for that key.

His father’s key.

That key that will lead him to the truth and is the only way out.

For some day they must get out, as some day they had to leave that wilderness.

And Levi also knows all he has to do is give Eren back his key.

What it will do, Levi isn’t sure but not yet, he doesn’t want to just yet, just as he’d delayed their leaving the woods until they had to, even now-

He is doing the same thing.

He has not only stolen Eren’s key but Levi has also stolen time. Because there is not enough of it, and once time runs out so must they.

It is so hard to shake the origin of the underground from himself, it has honed his every instinct and cultivated what it is he truly desires.

But what is it that Eren desires, is it not the same?

A couple more seasons pass and Eren only becomes worse, sometimes he wanders from the house, not finding what he’d been looking for there and Levi will find him instead tearing up that flower field, collapsed on the path up the cliff to their home after digging for so long along the trees in the woods, occasionally he’d find him huddled and exhausted in a den like the one they’d stayed in- he’d found near the mountains. His hands dirtied as Levi’s knees would become when he’d fall to them before Eren, shaking him to rise, ordering it of him- Eren would snap out from whatever trance he’d been having once he saw Levi. Whatever unease, or anxiety he’d felt gone, when Levi would hold him, more often than not taking him then and there, filling him up to take his mind off of whatever it was he’d been truly looking for, just as Eren did to him when Levi would try to lead him to (where?)

Eren has not once gone to that shore so he has never looked for the key there.

On a particularly warm night that marks the next will be cold (as cold as it had been before Levi’d come here) Levi decides.

Before that time runs out, and there comes a day when Eren will no longer recognize him as a replacement for what had been lost, Levi will invest that time elsewhere, he will make a bet once more, he will wean luck from Eren once again.

There is a place that they must go no matter what, and while Levi has forgotten where and what that place actually is just as Eren has forgotten what it is he searches for- Levi has never been much for those that are called “brave”, and what he does now he cannot and will not call it such. What he is doing is sacrifice, and if it will yield the results he desires- he will not truly know until all is said and all is done.

It’s before the sun sets that he takes Eren’s hand, where scars and bite marks appear as he drags Eren along with him to that distant red shore-

Levi will finish what he set out to do.

It is his… their duty.

He drags him across the soft red sand, to stand with him before the crimson waves, the spray of the water warm, and not salty in scent but metallic. Like the blood that drips from Eren’s bitten hand, it slowly falls against Levi’s skin and is regarded briefly. The closer they get to the water, the more heavy Eren becomes in his grip, resisting. The closer they advance along the shore, Levi remembers- and so does,

“Eren.”

“What is it sir?”

“It’s time.”

Eren is staring on him intensely, those golden eyes so livid, Levi thinks Eren must already know what he has done.

“Wall Maria has been taken back, it’s time the rest of the world beyond the walls be taken as well. But this cannot be done without you,”

Levi loosens his cravat a little, and a few buttons to pull what lay beneath his shirt.

He has not kept it there long, and instead had hid it in the flower vase.

“Nor this.”

It is Eren’s key. He’d lost it and had been looking for it.

“All this time… you had it, Corporal Levi?”

“That’s correct. I took it from you.”

Levi brings up Eren’s bloodstained hand and leans forth to kiss it, blood mars the corner of his lips and Levi doesn’t bother to wipe it away. Unclasping Eren’s hand from his, he uses both hands now to lift Eren’s necklace from himself and placing it over Eren’s head, Levi returns Eren’s key to him. His gaze is downcast and does not meet Eren’s.

Eren clasps the key in his red hand, the bite marks disappearing, healing, the blood fading as the sea mist covers them, and the waves approach, closer, stronger, louder, surer-

Levi tightens his cravat and buttons up the top buttons of his shirt, a fist clenched as he brings it over his heart, the other stained in blood at his side. Still he does not look upon Eren.

“Why?”

Eren says over the sound of crashing waves.

Only to answer does Levi look at Eren and Eren feels all is right though wrong had just been set.

“To control you. Forgive me Eren, the sword you had entrusted to me, I threw it aside- forgetting what it was that you wanted, even though it must be me who will kill you.”

Without that sword there had been no assurance that Eren could be contained. In the end, even here.

Eren closes his eyes tightly, thinking. Opening them as his grip unclenches his returned key. It dangles from his neck, warmed by Eren’s palm. Both of Eren’s hands now fists at his sides.

“I understand Corporal Levi. Then may I ask a favour of you as compensation?”

Levi looks almost surprised, but he attentively listens as Eren had to he.

“What is it Eren?”

“Please, sir, tell me- what your orders are now? What action must I take now? There’s not a moment to waste right? Corporal! Order me to do what I must do!”

The waves have risen and collapsed at their feet, rushing to flood about their ankles and continuing to flood to near their knees- Levi takes a single step towards Eren, drawing close to his face-

“Listen well then you shitty brat, I’m not going to repeat myself.”

Eren gives a salute, “Yes sir!”

What he would give to have that sword back at his side! But looking at Eren, looking at him now- it is obvious-

“Eren, this whole world we’re in right now is a dream. It is the dream you had, and it is the dream I had, but there’s no use for dreaming. Only idiots sleep around all day not doing a damn thing. You’re going to make up to me for all the days you slept away without killing a single titan. You’re going to make up to me all those days I wasted waiting for you. So wake up! Wake up right now Eren! We’re returning to Wall Maria and we’re going to go beyond the walls and kill _every single titan_. Make your decision _now_ , will you go with me or not?”

The waves have risen to their hips now, lapping about their stomachs, warm and not at all a biting cold as Eren had described, that had been described to him.

Eren’s salute turns into an open hand upon his chest, over his heart. Levi steps closer in to Eren to take that hand in his for he has not that blade.

Eren’s decision is-

“Even without that sword there is no one on this earth who can kill me but you Corporal Levi. I will go with you. I told you, I told everyone, I swore to myself! I would kill every last one of them so long as I lived! I cannot die until every last of one of them is dead, I will not be killed by you until not a single titan exists on this earth!”

That red sky cracks open and falls into the red sea, peering up at it one would see within that crack there is a distant, faded blue, of the world they are from. It is a sight of that which lies outside the dream- but Levi and Eren only look upon the other. The gold that Levi had seen is dark and turns to a familiar green. Levi unclasps his mantle and pulls it from himself to wrap Eren in it, before the crashing waves rise too high, as the tide comes in to their chests, to their throats, closer, closer, closer. Levi pulls Eren to him, Eren stepping forward, both folding the other into an embrace, their lips locking in a tender kiss before the water rises over their heads and the saltiness Levi tastes, he cannot tell if it be what the sea is truly to be like or if it is only Eren’s tears.

\--

They’d worked hard to contain him.

Her subordinates had all come rushing in to wake her, but she’d already been awake. By that loud crashing.

The wall had fallen.

That was what she’d thought. 

But it’d been that red crystal barrier that’d broke, collapsing so slowly you could barely see it being done. As of this moment it’s still falling. The alarming part had been the noise it’d made on the large steaming cracks that’d almost suddenly appeared upon all along it. But the source of that is plain when what Hanji had seen after hastily getting dressed (it was cold out there! Her subordinates had worriedly told her, it is near winter now, though her blood is pumping and she’s anything but cold!) the place that Eren had been sealed in had collapsed.

No, it had been broken out from.

Eren had woken up but had turned into a titan.

Or had Eren turned into a titan and woken up?

For all they know he is still asleep inside that form, as his titan self wrecked havoc on the town.

Apparently he’d stood, waken and amongst the rubble that fell, soldiers who’d remembered seeing him cooperate with Corporal Levi and (now) Lieutenant Mikasa had tried to communicate with him. Luckily they were able to get out of the way, but he’d tried to attack them.

It was miraculous any of this had happened despite the danger.

But it was with this possibility in mind that the Recon Corps had taken and barricaded this entire town off to civilians. They’d made pathways and set up traps all along the houses. Eren had run out straight through the garden after destroying his resting place, he’d run to the end of the street where the buildings there and street had been turn up in his rush to escape. He'd taken a left (though it hadn’t mattered if he took left or right, they’d set up cannons and barbed wire all along _all_ of the roofs). They’d shot out a couple of nets to catch him but he’d evaded them only to end up taking a few hits of grapeshot in turn. That'd slowed him down enough that when he turned down another street they were ready for him. Shooting out more netting and wire they’d ensnared him as they had the female titan in the woods. 

He is there now, trapped, and struggling to break free as of this moment. The wires creak and some have snapped, Eren’s titan form has gotten more powerful even though he’d been sleeping this whole time (or is it because he has been sleeping this whole time that it is so powerful?) that Hanji supposes the wires won’t hold but for a few more hours and they’ll just have to trap him again to stop him.

She’s observing him now as Erwin and Armin talk amongst themselves and the other troops over what is to be done. At this point in time Corporal Levi was supposed to be here to subdue Eren but he is nowhere to be found.

A rescue team had been assembled with the Garrison to clear the rubble of the place Eren had rested, since Corporal Levi was usually there they surmised he might be under the rubble- but they’d cleared a good deal of it and hadn’t found a trace of Levi. No clothes, no body parts, no blood or hair, not even his gear- well that wasn’t entirely true. They'd found one of his swords but nothing else, and the sword could not be budged, it was stuck in a small remaining part of the crystal Eren had slept in, though the rest- a bigger part of that too was seemingly gone and they could see from moving rocks around it that Levi wasn’t buried underneath it, nor Eren and the rest of that crystal.

The next course of action would be to call Lieutenant Mikasa in to subdue Eren but she is out for an expedition outside the walls like she usually is, exterminating titans with her squad.

So for the meanwhile they would have to wait it out. Perhaps Eren would turn back to his normal human form after tiring himself out? Or perhaps if he was still asleep so his titan form would also fall asleep… if worse comes to worse a lot of them would lose their lives trying to prevent Eren from wherever or whatever it is he wants to do. He’d headed deeper into the town after all. He’d been right along the wall, he could have tried to break it, or like Annie had- climb it. But he’d rushed from that direction forward to… where? Was he heading out to the town where more people would be? Did he need to go to a different Wall? Did he have any thoughts or motives at all? That is what Hanji wants to know.

She also wants to know, if Levi cannot be found, or Mikasa does not return soon, how will everything turn out?

Hanji looks over across the rooftop she’s on to the other rooftops where the other soldiers are positioned, either by a cannon or sword in hand, at the ready, as they have been especially trained for. A sea of green and black, she’s still not entirely used to their winter attire and had almost put on her old uniform in the rush though it didn’t fit quite as nicely, people really are creatures of habit. She particularly focuses where she thought Erwin and Armin had been conversing and is surprised to see them… bickering?

She secures his clipboard of notes and other papers and flies over, not even her wire snapping back into canisters enough to disrupt the tension.

Armin has his fists clenched about him, his long blond hair pulled back in a ponytail for once (but it has been a while since he’d used his 3D maneuver gear) as he’s pleading with the Commander, whom he has to support in using his gear since he’s without an arm-

“Please sir! Allow me to go! I’ve stopped Eren before! I’m sure if I applied the same technique with a few modifications- the results could be the same!”

“Refused, Squad Leader Armin. There’s an equal chance the results will not be the same. That’s not a risk I’m willing to take.”

“That’s what I’m saying sir! I’m willing to take the risk! Please allow me to do it! If Mikasa doesn’t come here soon or if Corporal Levi is dead then-”

Hanji butts in at this time- “Oh my, Armin you think Corporal Levi is dead?”

Armin turns to her a little surprised she is there, but Erwin already knew just didn’t give any indication.

“H-he might be?”

Hanji opens her mouth to reply or whistle, something, wait-

When Erwin continues, “I stand by my decision. Until Lieutenant Ackerman arrives to access the situation for herself, we are all to be in standby unless Eren breaks free.”

Armin is a little red in the face, it’s cold and his hood is down, maybe a little embarrassment at being so clearly denied by Commander Erwin has become unusual to him, but more like he is confident in this, and he is not confident in much- that he can save Eren like he did before… by cutting just enough to hurt Eren’s human form within to get him to his senses… if they did that then they wouldn’t have to worry about Eren breaking free-

“It’s a nice idea,” Hanji is telling him, “But you have to think about how that was then and this is now you know? Did you know that not only is Levi nowhere to be found on the wreckage site but a huge portion of the crystal Eren was in is missing as well? What do you suppose that means? Hm? There’s lots of things don’t you think! Armin, like say-”

Armin’s face has gotten redder-

“…it could be that in the crystal-”

“-Eren is still sleeping, but where is that crystal and where is Eren?”

“…inside… the titan.”

And swords cannot cut into that crystal. If Armin were to cut into Eren’s titan form and beneath it where Eren should be, Eren would be protected by that crystal then…

“The level of risk might even out if you consider that there’s only one titan on rampage and not a whole bunch of other ones that you guys might have been eaten by if it weren’t for Levi! Right! But I think the Commander had not only your best interests but _his_ best interests in mind too, Armin.”

Hanji gives him a wink and Armin feels defeated.

“That’s correct… but…”

He didn’t like not doing anything, he’d done nothing many a time, too often…

His internal struggle is put at ease, as a great clamor rises amongst the troops, the gate is being opened… Mikasa and her squad have returned home!

\--

Mikasa hates the rain.

It’s only started to pour a little when she enters through the gates, her subordinates behind her, they hurry forth, many signals had been shot overheard from the scout that’d seen them near the wall.

They were signals to show they were seen to be returning and to also tell them what to prepare for once back within the wall. 

Mikasa is quick to act, she spurs her horse to where Eren had slept, and riding hard and fast, leading her horse to leap over rubble and rabble, Mikasa has returned to this spot to claim what is not hers.

What many of the other soldiers could not do, she can do.

She is strong after all.

Stronger than any of them!

From that crystal Mikasa pulls out the blade Levi had abandoned, that sword that is Eren’s!

With it in hand she rides forth, hurries forth, a few of the soldiers who could usually keep up with her, following her now, Jean is the closest. She leaves all of them in the dust as she switches to 3D maneuver gear, leaping and flying across the many buildings, and roofs, compensating by creating a new path with twists and turns others with less skill would balk at or otherwise find impossible when the usual paths to take are seen to no longer exist.

She lands heavily aside Armin, a salute made with last thought formality. Armin knows in the past Mikasa would not have bothered with it considering the situation has to do with Eren. Now that Mikasa is here, and they all knew of her arrival from the crying of other soldiers, their voices relieved and exalting- “Fight! Fight! Lieutenant Ackerman! Go! Lieutenant Mikasa!”

What can be done now-

Mikasa is tightly holding onto Eren’s sword.

“I have enough gas in my gear, “ Mikasa reports as she does away with dulled blades and Jean and her other subordinates who have managed to catch up with her, assist her replacing the blade canister with new, sharp ones. She places Eren’s sword in one of the spots, though the handle sticking out looks a little odd, the slight added weight is nothing to Mikasa.

“Commander Erwin. Your orders.”

Erwin nods to her.

“Lieutenant Mikasa, you are to subdue Eren Yeager and ensure the bonds placed upon him this time are less likely to break. You are to hinder his movements with almost any means possible, however you must take special care to not slice of course the nape of his neck or the jaw.”

Mikasa nods, her expression tight.

Armin looks to Erwin and then to Mikasa, back again, it clicking faster in his mind than he can make his mouth open to speak- “The jaw…”

Erwin nods to Armin now, it was another reason aside from Armin’s safety that he didn’t want Armin to go. Informs him.

“I believe that Levi is still alive and within Eren’s titan form.”

Armin wants to apologise- he had been so brash earlier, he hadn’t looked at all the angles truly, Squad Leader Hanji had surmised this and even tried to help him understand this… if he had been a little less anxious over Eren’s safety, he could have seen- no, because this had been over Eren he should have seen this!

Mikasa’s jaw is clenched as her fist is.

“Understood. Though it is not necessary to order me to ensure that Corporal Levi is protected. Eren will protect him.”

A cold silence.

That Armin breaks.

“I see, Corporal Levi must be alive. Eren is protecting him right now and that’s why he’s going on this rampage. If Corporal Levi is inside him and he feels endangered, just like when he protected Mikasa and me… it’s no wonder he is aggressive.”

Mikasa doesn’t nod, but her expression clearly shows she agrees and doesn’t like it at all.

The rain isn’t helping. They’ve all pulled their hoods up.

“Levi might be inside Eren, but are you sure he’s alive? Maybe Eren ate him up?”

Is what Hanji is musing aloud, Mikasa answers firmly.

“That shortie is alive, there is no doubt.”

If Eren says he will protect you, if Eren protects you-

They all hear a loud snap and another, another as the wires that had held Eren back break, and his titan form gives out a giant roar as it flings the broken wires from itself, bracing itself to run through the grapeshot the soldiers along the roofs have readied and some have started to fire. They will not release any more restraints without Mikasa as a guide, they’re her back up.

It is with this certainty and occurrence that Mikasa draws out her own blades.

“I will prove it to you!”

Mikasa starts to run, before flying out with her 3D maneuver gear. Hanji smiling after her.

“A very hardworking serious child, if she were truly Levi’s successor she should crack a few jokes with me you know?”

Armin’s face turns apple red, as he tells a sputtering and very loud Jean to take his head out of the gutter.

\--

She has to hurry.

Is what Mikasa is telling herself.

She must be faster, stronger, than anyone else! 

She darts from one building to the next, flinging herself in one great straight line to flip forward to change her course to below, to that of Eren’s titan form’s ankles where she cuts deep and cleanly. She embeds wire there and then whirls and twists around the cut ankles, tying them together, to make Eren trip- but he manages to stay upright on them- she flies out before his knees and then caught on the end of the line, she uses the rebound to whirl herself forward strongly. Another wire shot out to embed at a rib to propel her and launch her higher, diagonally across the chest right- and around the back again, up, around the other arm and under it, she’s careful not to slice near the neck nor jaw, but if she’d been a second slower through all of this, Eren would have caught her. All this is possible too through Hanji’s innovation of making it so a soldier could carry this much extra wire to ensnare a titan. One of the only problems it having is that it is very heavy. But Mikasa can carry it… so could Levi.

She cuts across the back and cuts and wraps the wire many a time around and across the body at a dizzying pace, before wrapping it around Eren’s neck and flies high before almost crashing down she flips over again to kick against the top of his head. Flying around his arms she has now caught up in the wire, there is enough space for her to double back again and she wraps up under the wire. Letting go of the rest of what she has, now panting, sweat on her brow, a bit of her scarf peeks out from beneath her hood, her hair, the blue ribbon, and clothes soaked to the bone as the rain had worsen. But even with her visuals hindered she is still capable of this, even though by now instinct alone propels her and-

She pushes a bulk of her weight back so the wire tightens and brings Eren’s titan form’s arms together, trapped. Now Eren is thoroughly bound and she only tightens the grip the wire has by flying this far back.

Mikasa reaches to unsheathe the sword that Eren had given Levi and with it she cuts the wire that connects her and Eren. She throws the sword strongly, straight down through both of Eren’s hands, into the ground, where it pins him absolutely.

She does all this before the wall of the building she’d been trying to land against shatters behind her and Mikasa can hear Corporal Levi scolding her for putting too much of her weight into her landing.

She pulverizes the stone behind her and lands against the wall on the opposing side within, sliding down wearily on the faded floral wallpaper to atop of some of the broken rubble that’d got caught between her and this other wall.

Her entire gas canister empty, she can’t move from this spot, but her role is done. This is the first time she’s tried to move her legs and can’t. She’s tired is all, they’re not broken. She looks out from where she’d crashed through to see the sparks fly and spurt as wire upon wire is shot out from the modified cannons on the roofs to fall over Eren in a net to pin him down even more.

It is a job well done and a grand cry is heard among all the soldiers as Eren’s titan form stills beneath his bindings.

They are relieved for a moment until they all hear it.

Louder than before and all at once.

The cracking.

\--

That red crystal that had started to break is truly breaking now.

It falls from the walls in large shards and chunks, steaming as it does, pulsing and glowing even in the faded autumn daylight, even in the falling rain.

It’s worried amongst everyone that it will cut in the earth beneath it and dishevel the wall aside it but no such thing happens, instead the crystal steams for it is melting, into a hot, thick liquid, that’s smell is akin to blood. It rushes as a great tide through the streets but leaves not a stain, nor drowns a single person or creature that’d remained in the streets, it all flows through across the walls to this one town, and through these streets it all heads to one point.

To where Eren is.

Hanji is calling to her subordinates to not stand in the flow’s way; no sample can be taken though some had already tried (herself included) and Erwin has given orders for all to stand back as the liquid of the crystal splashes over the bonds that’d held Eren’s titan form melts away and releases him.

That is what they thought.

But when the liquid steams away they see the wires remain, only hanging loosely over eaten and corroded flesh. A cage of bones as been set upright and the wires cover it, hanging and drooping as its own pink and red meat does. The tide of blood had come forth to spill more blood and as the crystal in all its forms steams away into nothing like the flesh of Eren’s titan form does now, the rain relents though it could have washed this all away.

As a cold wind rises and blows through, the clouds scarce dispersing, but enough for a little sun to shine through and the blue of the sky to peek at them- through the dissolving steam they see a bright flash of silver as that sword that’d been discarded by so many hands is taken up rightfully by the correct one at last.

They can hear him, clearly now that the rainfall has ceased. And can see them just as clearly too.

Sitting atop a throne of bones is Corporal Levi and wrapped in his mantle, resting against his chest, clasped there by an arm is Eren, eyes closed once more in slumber.

With his other arm, in his hand, where the origin of that flash of silver had been- is Eren’s sword.

Levi draws the sword down from where’d he’d raised it in the air in warning. A killing intent none of them have felt unless or since they’d fought aside him on the battlefield beyond the wall within that slice.

He yells up to them though he does not look up to them, rather he cannot, his eyes are clouded- staring ahead and seeing nothing yet still seeing them despite that it feels-

“TO ANY OF YOU BASTARDS WHO VALUE YOUR LIFE! Take another step further and I will _kill you on the spot_.”

None move an inch.

Until.

Commander Erwin asks Armin to finally risk his life.

Armin agrees, he’d been prepared to lay it down since he chose to enter the Recon Corps, even further back than that.

He lends Commander Erwin a hand in getting down to where Levi and Eren are, enough distance that Levi could throw the sword to kill them as Mikasa had thrown it into Eren’s titan hands, but that was the thing. One of them would die but one would remain. Levi would have to wait for the other to be closer to kill them. Even with logic supporting them, there are irregularities and all sorts of incredible impossibilities that could not be accounted for but must be considered. The person that was before them and considering them an enemy at this moment was none other than humanity’s strongest soldier. For that despite their safeguards his threat still stood very real, the possibility of imminent death clenched at their throats and causing the sweat on their brows a testament to how they really feel. Least to Armin and the other soldiers. Commander Erwin looks his usual determined composed.

As for Corporal Levi-

Cornered… wolves.

That is what Armin is thinking as he looks at Levi and Eren. 

Commander Erwin steps in front of him blocking that view, protecting him.

Levi cannot determine, having just come from within Eren, having just woke from a dream, and blinded momentarily from the fluids of a titan and the steam of the crystal or one or the other- that the people he felt around him are not foes.

To him right now the entire world is his enemy until it could be proven otherwise.

Until it could be proven otherwise both he and Eren are in danger.

Much like how Eren’s titan form had taken in Levi to protect him and went berserk when people tried to go near it, unable to determine anything not a threat than itself and Levi, Levi is doing just the same.

He cannot see any of them, and speaks to the abyss.

Death.

Erwin replies.

“It’s me Levi.”

Erwin moves forward, and there’s a slight indication of recognition in the brief rise of Levi’s shoulders as he listens closely to Erwin’s steps. Everyone watching tense. Armin clutches his hands before him. Is there nothing he can do?

Armin shakes his head.

Eren is outside the crystal and Levi is confirmed alive.

With that in mind, Armin runs to stand aside Erwin who looks over in almost alarm.

“Eren! Can you hear me Eren! It’s me Armin! Your friend! Wake up! The… the titans! You still haven’t killed all the titans! S-So-”

When his voice is about to give up-

He hears from overhead, rock falling from the opening in the broken building above-

“That’s right! Eren! It’s me! Mikasa! Your family! Wake up Eren! Didn’t mother always say you need to sleep in a bed? Wake up right now! Eren! Please Eren! Though I haven’t killed them all in your place, there’s still time! Come with us! Fulfill your dream with your own hands! Eren!”

The rain that’d cease to fall starts to fall again and only then, the cold drops on Eren’s face does he begin to stir.

The rain washes over Levi’s face, restoring his vision as Eren opens his eyes, the echo of his friends' voices in his mind. Thinking Armin… Mikasa… but seeing-

“Corporal Levi… Where is this…?”

Levi sighs, and lowers his sword.

He wipes at the rain that's fallen about Eren's dark and emerald eyes for they look like tears.

“Humanity’s second victory. I told you before didn’t I? We’ve taken back Wall Maria. Your home, Eren.”


End file.
